


sing that body electric

by aghamora



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, No murder, Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Secret Relationship, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:33:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4208085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She's leading him around by his prick, like a dog on a leash. He's fucking putty in her hands. And he loves it.”</p><p>In which Frank and Laurel get it on. All the time. Not always in the most appropriate places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beg

**Author's Note:**

> Basically what might happen if Flaurel got back together and started having hot, secret sex again. 
> 
> I have no excuse for this. I just wanted to write some smut. This will have some plot, but not a ton, so you’ve been warned.

“What’re you doing here, Frank?”

Laurel isn’t sure what time it is. Past midnight, the last time she’d checked – and here is Frank at her doorstep, perfectly put together in a suit and tie like it’s the middle of the goddamn day. She’s only just gotten home from the office, and although Frank is _Frank_ and well, his presence does kind of make her snap wide awake all at once, she really doesn’t want any part of work showing up at her door right now.

Especially not him.

He raises his eyebrows at her forwardness. “Can I come in?”

She considers shutting the door in his face without giving an answer, but something stills her hand. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at her. That always does things to Laurel that she’ll never admit.

“What’re you doing here?” she steps aside reluctantly. “If it’s not something for work I don’t-“

“I wanna talk this through,” Frank cuts right to the chase, stopping in the middle of the living rom. He’s still looking at her, tenderly and intently, like she actually matters to him. Like he actually _cares_ , about more than just getting in her pants.

Oh, God. She cannot have this discussion right now – or ever.

“There’s nothing to talk through,” she shakes her head. “And is there any reason we have to do this _now_?”

“Nothing,” he repeats, incredulous. He’s standing too close, looming over her. She needs to back up. She really, really does. “After what we had? All that mind-blowing sex was nothing?”

“Maybe it was mind-blowing for you,” she shoots back, though it’s a lie, and a bad one at that. “Not for me.”

He sees right through Laurel, though, and narrows his eyes, taking another, bolder step closer to her. He’s so close that she can smell his cologne, musky and like a fucking aphrodisiac. She hates it.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“No. You know what’s bullshit? The fact that you didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend. The-the fact that you _lied_ -“

“Woah, hey, I never lied to you, okay-”

“I’m a law student, Frank,” she snaps. “I know that a lie by omission is still a lie.”

“What do you want me to say? Yeah. I didn’t tell you I had a girlfriend. But you know I ended it with her, that night-“

She gives a sound of disbelief. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing you treat women like toys you can just throw away when you find a more interesting one?”

“Listen to me. You’re not a fucking toy to me, Laurel. You’re not just a notch in my belt. You’ve never been just another girl.” She opens her mouth to cut him off, but he keeps going, “I know what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna ask why you should believe me after what happened, and I don’t know what to tell you other than you should.”

For what feels like the longest moment in the world, they stand like that, only feet apart, breathing heavily and glaring at each other. Laurel is furious, and utterly exhausted by the day, and for some reason also ridiculously turned on by it all, by the deep, chilling anger in his voice and the look in his eyes. And that makes her despise him even more, because he can do all these things to her without even really trying and _it just isn’t fair_.

She just needs him gone. Out of here. That’s all she knows for sure.

Frank’s eyes soften, and he reaches out to her. “Laurel-“

“Don’t,” she shakes her head, as she struggles to calm her racing heart. “I don’t know why you even came here. I can’t be with you, if that’s what you want. Kan-“

“-didn’t stop us before,” he finishes for her. “Why is it any different now?”

“It just _is_ , okay? We were never anything. We were just…” Her throat tightens. All the blood feels like it’s rushing to her head, flushing her cheeks, and in the darkness, she hopes that he can’t see. “We were just each other’s… side pieces.”

The words fall flat between them, heavy in the air. It’s the truth, and yet somehow to Laurel it feels like a complete and utter lie.  

But Frank isn’t giving up, no matter how many times she shoots him down, because however stubborn she is, he is ten times so. Before she can even blink he’s right in front of her again, closer this time, and he’s started using that voice of his, the low, hypnotic one that could persuade even the holiest of saints to sin.

“I’ll do anything, Laurel.”

Here it is again. _I’ll do anything_. Last time she’d managed to steel herself against it, but now… it’s getting to her. He’s wearing her down, just like he’d wanted, and she knows it, even though she hates the idea of giving him what he wants.

The realization that she wants this too, however, is enough to give her pause.

Finally, Laurel finds her voice and looks him square in the eyes. “You’d do anything for me?”

Slowly, Frank nods. “Yeah.”

“No questions asked?”

Another nod. He doesn't even hesitate.

She shouldn’t be doing this; she should stop right now and send him away. She has a boyfriend, and Laurel knows how this thing between them will end, how it ended last time. She should know better. She _should_ , and she doesn’t, and all at once she realizes that she can’t even bring herself to care.

“Okay.” The words slip out before Laurel can think twice. “T-take off your clothes.”

The look on Frank’s face goes from shock, to amusement, and then finally she sees him put on his bedroom eyes. She knows the instant he does that she’s in too deep to save herself now, even if she wanted to.

_Kan. Kan. Kan_. What the hell is she doing? She should be defusing this situation, not making it a thousand times worse.    

“You want me to strip for you, princess?” Frank quirks an eyebrow in disbelief. “Your wish is my command.”

He smirks, slipping his fingers through his tie and pulling until it comes undone. Once it has, he tosses it onto the floor, along with his suit jacket, and then Frank’s hands go for the buttons on his waistcoat. Soon that’s gone too, and his smirk grows wider as he parts the buttons on his dress shirt and lets it fall open – and _God_ , it’s all too much for Laurel. Just looking at his bare chest is making her throb desperately between her legs.

She’s wet for him, and he hasn’t even touched her yet. That can’t be normal. But she figures that none of this really is.

He discards his shirt, and is just about to reach for his fly when Laurel storms over suddenly, grabs Frank, and kisses him, crushing her mouth onto his so hard that it almost hurts. She can never seem to get close enough, no matter how tightly she coils her arms around him, how wide she opens her mouth for his tongue. She’d wanted him all along, she realizes suddenly, even though she had tried to deny it to herself. She’d wanted him like a bad habit, like a smoker craving a cigarette.

She should’ve known quitting him cold turkey would never work.

“If we do this again,” Laurel breathes, “we do it on my terms. I-I’m in charge.”

“Yes ma’am,” he pulls away and drops down onto his knees before her, hooking his fingers into her skirt to ease it off her hips. “You’re the boss, babe.”

She’s trying to calm herself down, keep her cool, but Frank is on his knees, _Frank is on his knees_ , and that’s all she can really think about. After pulling off her skirt, he peppers light, teasing kisses on her upper thigh, then moves his mouth over to her panties, finding them practically soaked through.

“What’s the matter?” he teases. “Legal Aid guy not getting you off?”

He isn’t, actually, though she would sooner kill herself than admit that to Frank. Kan is amazing at the romance part of their relationship, but in bed… He’s too slow, too cautious. He never does anything without asking, which at first she’d found endearing, but now just frustrates her to no end. The only time she actually enjoys sex with him is when she closes her eyes and envisions a beard and strong arms and a cocky smirk in his place.

She holds back the whine that threatens to escape her throat. “Stop _talking_.”

Surprisingly enough, Frank does, and busies his mouth instead with licking her languidly over the thin lace of her underwear, until her knees start to tremble with anticipation. And then all at once Frank is dragging her panties down with his teeth, and looking up at her knowingly, and sealing his lips around her clit – and she almost totally loses it, right then and there.

But no. She’s not letting Frank control this, not tonight. This is about her.  

“Still on the pill?” his voice draws her out of her thoughts.

She nods frantically, glad that one of them has at least some presence of mind, because safe sex is the last thing on her brain right now.

“Get up,” she tells Frank, the words coming out more forcefully than she’d anticipated.

With an amused look on his face, Frank obeys, and she attacks his lips with her own again as soon as he’s standing, somehow managing to stumble into the bedroom without breaking away. It would be so easy just to give up control, to let him push her down on the bed and fuck her through the mattress, and maybe that _is_ kind of what she wants. But this whole time he’s been looking at her like he thinks the whole ‘her being in charge’ thing is some kind of joke, and she’s determined to show him that she means business.

So she whips off her shirt and bra, yanks down his pants, and shoves him down onto the queen-sized bed, with a strength she didn’t even know she had. It catches Frank off guard, and he lands with a chuckle, propping himself up on his elbows to look at her. Even in the darkness she can see his erection straining against his boxer briefs, and in a second’s notice she has them off too, ridding them of the last barrier of clothing in their way.

It would be a lie to say that seeing how hard she makes him doesn’t turn her on, because it does – a lot. Driven on, Laurel climbs atop him, straddling his thighs and taking his cock into hand, and the instant she does, Frank’s hands go for her hips, his fingers digging into her skin. Tortuously slowly, she guides him against her clit, and then lower, to her folds, leaving his tip drenched in her wetness. He groans at the sensation, twitching in her hand.

“B-beg,” she manages to choke out. Her voice isn’t as steady as she would like, but it’s hard to be in control when she wants him inside her just as much as he wants to _be_ inside her. “Beg for it.”

“Laurel…” his voice is a deep growl, and she can hear a note of warning in it. She angles her hips down just so, taking the head of his cock inside her for a moment before just as quickly pulling back, and that earns her a long, desperate groan. “ _Christ_.”

“Do it,” she gasps, flicking him against her clit again. “Beg.”

Frank’s mouth moves, but no words come out, and Laurel knows at once that she has him right where she wants him. He’s past the point of articulating coherent phrases, when he’d do just about anything to get inside her; he’s way easier to control than he knows, and then, finally, the word bursts out of his mouth: “ _Please_.”

She still doesn’t move, and he moans again, hips bucking up into her hand. “Please. Fucking please, _Laurel_.”

In one swift movement, she lines him up with her and sinks down onto his cock, and it’s good, really fucking _good_. She doesn’t know how she ever forgot how good it feels. He feels bigger than she remembers, so big that it almost hurts, but it never does; he fills her just right, like he was made to be there.

His hold on her hips tightens, and a grunt tears itself from his throat. “Jesus, you’re so goddamn-“

“Shut,” Laurel bites out suddenly, “ _up_. Don’t make a sound. Or move, o-or I’ll… I’ll stop.”

She can see his eyes burn dangerously, but Frank does as she says, and his mouth snaps shut. Laurel starts rolling her hips, back and forth, riding him in a familiar, dizzyingly-pleasurable rhythm that’s as good for her as it is him, and she can see the rippling of the muscles in Frank’s jaw as he clenches it to keep quiet. The feeling of him inside her is good, but it’s not quite enough, and so she reaches down between her legs to massage her clit in time with the delving of her hips. It makes her moan, as the pressure between her legs builds maddeningly slowly.

Laurel knows it’ll drive him crazy, and judging by the steady increase of groans and growls from him, and the way he has started to swell inside her, she can tell that he’s getting close, and increasingly pissed off at the lack of control. Without warning, Frank grabs ahold of her in an attempt to flip their positions, but she pins his arms down on either side of his shoulders before he can get far and hisses.

“ _No_.”

Frank almost roars in frustration. This is a power struggle, tonight. They both know it, and he knows he’s losing, and he probably feels emasculated by it or some other kind of bullshit.

Laurel doesn’t care. She _needs_ this.

Though he could overpower her easily if he wanted to, Frank doesn’t try again. Instead, he surrenders himself to the first throes of his climax, and comes inside her with a strangled moan that half-sounds like her name.

But just because he’s finished doesn’t mean that she is. She’s close, gasping and panting, but not close enough to come. Frank may be an asshole, but he doesn’t get without giving, and after the tension in his body has relaxed and he refocuses his eyes, he pulls her down roughly against him.

He pushes her hand away from her clit and replaces it with his own, rubbing in forceful circles with the pads of his fingers, then uses the other to cup her breast and thumb her nipple. Laurel is too far gone to reprimand him for not staying still, or even remember that he was supposed to in the first place. The only thing she can think of is the pleasure, and how close, how _close_ she is. Close, close, but not _enough._

The soft words of encouragement he starts murmuring in her ear are what finally do it for Laurel, coaxing her gradually over the edge. “Come on. Come on, Laurel. Let go. Do it for me.”

“Frank,” she whimpers. “I’m, God – _F-Frank_.”

He takes one nipple into his mouth and sucks hard, and that’s all it takes: she cries out, shaking to pieces in his arms. She squeezes her eyes shut, a myriad of different colors dancing behind her eyelids. Tremors pass through her like earthquakes, and she digs her fingernails into his shoulders hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks behind.

Frank keeps up his ministrations as she rides it out, until the waves off pleasure ebb away and she collapses against his chest, sticky with sweat. Once she can remember how to move again, Laurel rolls off of him and stares up at the ceiling, struggling to catch her breath.

_God_. She hasn’t come that hard since…

Since the last time they’d slept together. Months ago.

It feels like it’s been years. She hadn’t even realized how sexually frustrated she had been, wound up tighter and tighter until she’d been ready to explode. Laurel almost wants to thank him, but she won’t. She knows that he already considers himself God’s gift to women. No way in hell is she going to puff up his ego any more.

“Damn,” Frank says, rolling over to face her. “It’s really hot when you order me around like that.”

He goes in for a kiss, but Laurel turns away and looks over at the clock. She isn’t in the mood for post-coital snuggling tonight, and especially not pillow talk. “You should go. I have an eight AM tomorrow.”

For an instant, Frank looks taken aback. Wounded, almost. But the look is there and gone as soon as it appears, and he feigns surprise instead.    

“Was I just used for sex?”

“What?” she jokes breathlessly. “You can dish it out but you can’t take it?”

He gets to his feet and reaches for his underwear. “Fair enough. Call me when you wanna do this again.”

“And who says I’ll want to do this again?” Laurel asks, as she sits up and watches him make for the door.

“You will,” Frank replies easily, turning back to wink at her. “No one comes like you just did and doesn’t want a round two. Or three. Or ten.”

He’s right, Laurel thinks as she watches him go, and he knows it. It’s been approximately two minutes, and already she can feel desire pooling hot in her stomach in anticipation of the next time.

Not that she’ll ever admit that to him, of course.


	2. Stall

The next day in court, she’s sitting funny.

Frank notices as soon as he lays eyes on her, and he’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the most satisfying things he’s ever seen, knowing he had been enough to leave her aching between her legs. He makes a point of sitting next to Laurel, and when she shifts over to make room for him on the bench, he hears her wince softly.

Christ. If he were a lesser man, he’d be hard already.

Thankfully, over the years he’s developed fairly decent self-control, though the fact that this is _Laurel_ and not any other girl does make it ten times more challenging. She’s in a black skirt that stops several inches above the knee with no tights underneath, and when he feels her brush her thigh consciously-or-unconsciously against his as they settle in, Frank starts to wonder how long it’ll be before his self-control gives out.

He can’t touch her; with Asher next to him and Michaela at her side, even he knows it’s too dangerous. It takes what feels like an eternity, but finally the judge calls a recess for lunch, and he catches up with Laurel in the lobby as she’s heading in the direction of the cafeteria.

“I was gonna eat out,” he says. “Wanna come?”

She looks surprised, but nods. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

They start making their way toward the exit, and then suddenly Frank grabs her arm and pulls her into the women’s restroom instead – which thankfully is empty. Within seconds he has her pushed up against the counter, with his hands gripping her at the waist tightly and his lips on hers, absorbing her surprised squeal.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she pants into their kiss.

Frank pulls away and moves his lips to her neck, kissing tenderly at her pulse point. “Not for food.”

She laughs. “I can’t believe you.”

“When I said I was gonna eat out, what’d you think I meant?” he teases, as picks her up and sets her on the countertop between the sinks. She leans back on her elbows, and he kneels before her, settling her legs over his shoulders.

“Someone’ll walk in,” Laurel hisses, as he peels up her skirt and runs his hands up and down her the smoothness of her thighs.

This is risky, even for them. Riskier than the porch, and that only thrills Frank more. “Let ‘em.”

“I didn’t have time to… wax or anything-“

“You think I care?”

“I just – this isn’t how this works,” she tries to protest again, though he’s not convinced in the slightest, especially considering the wet spot he can see steadily forming in the crotch of her panties. “You don’t get to just drag me in here and do this, and we agreed I was in charge-“

“You want me to stop?” he raises his eyebrows. “Just say the word.”

Laurel doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything, just whimpers and squirms, and he takes that as a sign to continue. His mouth practically watering for the taste of her, Frank slides her panties off, leaving them dangling around one of her ankles. He can see clearly she’s wet, her clit swollen with desire. He can smell her, too, the musky scent of her arousal hitting him all at once, and _God_ does it make him hard as a rock.

Going down on Laurel in a bathroom isn’t the classiest thing he’s ever done, but to hell with it. He’d eat her out even if the world was ending and not give a single fuck about any of it. 

Just as he starts to lean in, however, Laurel speaks up again, “Wait.” His head snaps up to look at her, and she swallows. “Just… don’t be rough. I’m sore.”

His cock twitches more insistently in his slacks. _Sore. Aching. Because of him._ But he doesn’t want to hurt her. He’d much rather make her come her brains out.

“I know,” he undertones. “I’ll go slow. I promise.”

Without another word, he envelops her folds in a deep kiss as if he were kissing her mouth, his nose brushing her clit and her wetness coating his lips. He pulls back with a wicked grin, licking his lips clean, and she whines at the loss of contact, and he’s about to lean in again when-

Suddenly, they hear the sound of faint chatter and heels clicking in the hallway leading into the bathroom. Laurel freezes, and Frank swears under his breath, tugging her to her feet none-too-gently and into one of the stalls. In their haste, neither of them notices her panties slip off her ankle and land in the middle of the floor until he’s about to pull the stall door shut behind them.

“Wait!” she hisses. “Frank, my-“

The sound of voices turns the corner, and her mouth snaps shut. If they didn’t have to be quiet he’d laugh at the horrified look on her face, but instead he just latches the door.

The footsteps stop in the middle of the bathroom, and a familiar voice wonders aloud, “What the hell is that?”

Annalise. Judging by the second pair of heels, he’s pretty sure Bonnie is with her.

‘Oh my God,’ Laurel mouths, her eyes widening further. They both know that she must be referring to Laurel’s underwear, because there’s no way in hell she could miss it, lying smack dab in the middle of the floor.

“That’s… disgusting,” Bonnie remarks.

Annalise sighs. “I don’t even want to know what kind of things people get up to in here.”

Frank wriggles his eyebrows. Laurel glares at him, and, feeling bolder, he moves his knee up her skirt, pinning her back against the stall wall. She swallows hard and tries to squirm to get away, but only ends up grinding down against his knee, nestled firmly between her thighs as it is. She’s going to stain his slacks, but Frank doesn’t care. It’s worth it just to see the scandalized look on her face.

‘We can’t,’ she mouths, her cheeks flushed bright red.

His only answer is a shrug as he leans in and kisses her, threading his fingers through hers and pinning her hands up against the wall too. Frank isn’t sure this location is entirely sanitary, but right now there are a hundred other way more important things on his mind, all of them involving Laurel and how impossibly wet she is. Giving in to her instincts, Laurel grinds down on his knee again in a desperate attempt to get some kind of friction, giving soft mewls against his mouth. Bonnie and Annalise have fallen into casual conversation outside at the mirrors and don’t hear, but this is too good a chance for Frank to pass up.

He hikes up Laurel’s skirt and eases one thick finger into her, careful not to cause her pain, but she’s so wet that he slips in without any sign of pain at all. Then, he pulls it out and massages the wetness up to her clit for lubrication, and that gets the desired reaction: Laurel moans, not loudly enough to be obvious, but not quietly enough for Annalise and Bonnie to miss, either. The instant she does, he clamps a hand over her mouth and gives her a pseudo-stern look, making a faint _tsking_ sound.

“What was that?” Bonnie wonders aloud. Annalise scoffs.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

Laurel whines against his palm, her hips bucking forward in search of his fingers again, and the sight of her there – with flushed cheeks and hazy eyes, writhing against him – is enough to drive Frank crazy. His cock is aching almost painfully, but he’ll worry about that later. He strokes two fingers against her clit, gliding them down to her labia before finally thrusting them inside. His thumb comes to toy with her clit, and she tenses up so violently at the sudden assault that he thinks he’s hurt her. But when he stops, Laurel glares at him with such need that her eyes burn, and so he continues.

She’s so wet that she’s coated his fingers completely, spilling down the insides of her thighs. Having her like this again is like paradise to him. It’s been the stuff of his wet dreams ever since she’d broke it off between them, and touching Laurel again, hearing the sounds she makes… Frank can’t explain how it feels. All he knows is that he’s missed it. _Her_. All of her.

Determined to finish her off, he removes his fingers entirely before thrusting them back in all the way up to his knuckles, and it works like a charm. Laurel rises up on her toes, squeals against his palm, and goes rigid for a moment, coming undone into his hand. He relishes in the spasming of her walls around his fingers, in the way she squeezes her thighs together and traps his hand as if she’d like to keep it there forever – which he would be completely fine with, in all honesty. Her eyelids flutter shut, and as Laurel comes down from her high, her head lolls to one side, her body going lax against him.

He removes his hand from her mouth and places his lips there instead, slipping his fingers out as well. By now Annalise and Bonnie are gone, and they’re free to speak again, a fact Laurel almost immediately takes advantage of.

“That… You…” she breathes. “I can’t wear those underpants now. They’ve been all over the floor-”

“Then don’t,” he murmurs. “It’ll drive me out of my fucking mind. Sitting next to you in court, knowing you don’t have anything on. Knowing that, if I wanted to… I could reach over and do what I just did to you again. And again. As many times as I wanted.”

She rolls her eyes, not buying into that in the least. “That’s a great idea, if we want to get charged with public indecency.”

“There’re worse crimes to commit.”

“I guess I’ll make do,” Laurel sighs. “But… in the meantime…”

She glances down at the very obvious erection straining against his slacks. He’s hard. Of course he is. It’s physiologically impossible to make Laurel come and _not_ be.

Her hands go for his belt, and he chuckles. “Like high school all over again.”

“Not for me,” Laurel tells him as she pulls down his zipper. “I want to an all-girl’s Catholic high school.”

He groans. Now that’s one hell of a mental image. “Christ.”

“What?” she teases. Laurel never does much talking during sex, but when she does she uses the voice she’s using now to wind him up: soft, breathy, like they’ve already gone one round. He could listen to it for hours. “Don’t tell me you have Catholic schoolgirl fantasies.”

“Now that you put the image in my head, can you blame me? What I would’ve given to see that.”

“Well,” Laurel says, taking him into her hand, “I… wouldn’t have minded you being my teacher.”

She strokes him slowly at first, massaging the bead of pre-come at his tip down the length of his cock and laying light kisses on his neck, and after a minute she sets a firm, steady pace that has him throbbing in her hand. He had already been close enough that just the feeling of her soft, lithe hand on him is almost enough to make him lose it, but of course he’s not going to, because he’s not a damn teenager. He prides himself on having killer stamina.

Part of Frank is aware that he doesn’t really need Laurel to do this. He could just mindlessly beat off and achieve relatively the same end goal, but the knowledge that it’s Laurel’s hands on him instead of his own, and Laurel is doing this because she wants to, and _Laurel, Laurel, Laurel_. Suddenly he doesn’t know how he’d gone a single day without touching her, without her touching _him_. She knows how to drive him completely fucking insane, going from hard strokes to soft ones, and giving gentle twists in between. She always has, right from the start, like it was instinctual to her.

He’s close, and he knows it, and so Frank leans in to crash his lips against hers, in an attempt to absorb as much of her as he can before this moment is gone.

“God, Laurel,” he groans against her neck. “Fuck, I missed you.”

He pulls back, and sees her blue eyes flicker with uncertainty. “You missed me, or you missed… this?”

“You,” his response is immediate. “I missed you.”

He comes with her name on his lips, his hips bucking into her hand as she pumps him through it. It makes a mess, which of course Frank had been expecting, because there’s no such thing as a neat handjob. Thankfully their clothes remain mostly untouched, except for a spot on Laurel’s skirt he wipes off with a paper towel after they’ve stepped out to clean themselves up. He’s almost half-tempted to leave it, but figures that the fact she’s now down a pair of underpants is probably bad enough.

After he’s wiped the sweat from his brow and smoothed out his suit, he walks up behind Laurel where she stands at the mirror and circles his arms around her waist.

“Come home with me,” he rasps. “Tonight. After work.”

“I can’t,” she says, untangling herself from his embrace. “It’s Wednesday. Kan’s coming over.”

 _Kan_. The name feels like a sucker punch right in the gut. When he’s alone with Laurel, and she’s moaning and whimpering his name, it’s easy to forget that she isn’t his. That she has a boyfriend; one that, for reasons he’ll never understand, she stubbornly refuses to dump.  

“Why bother with him when you got me?” Frank plays it off casually, though it’s a loaded question and they both know it.

She exhales sharply. “Because we aren’t together. We aren’t dating. I’m not your girlfriend-”

“Fine,” Frank keeps his voice low, even though he’s pissed. “You don’t have to be. Just be my girl. Tonight.”

“I already said I can’t,” she reiterates with a frown. “We have to get back.”

She’s gone before he can reach out to stop her, around the corner and out the door. Frank licks his lips, tasting her strawberry lip gloss there, and so he grabs a paper towel from the dispenser, wets it, and wipes the rest off, as well as the spots she’d left on his neck. He kind of feels like punching the mirror just to take his anger out on something, but he doesn’t. Instead, Frank just straightens his tie, smooths down his hair, and follows her out the door, ignoring the pair of middle-aged women who give him bewildered looks on the way out.

If this is all of her she’ll let him have, quick, stolen moments behind closed doors, then screw it. He’ll take what he can get.


	3. Dom

“This is some Fifty Shades of Grey shit right here.”

Laurel rolls her eyes and pulls tighter at one of the ties on his wrist. “You’re killing the mood, Frank.”

Laurel had been hesitant when she’d put this idea to Frank, expecting him to mock her for her amateur attempts at control, but he’d been surprisingly cool about it, because “damn, babe, if I’d known you were such a dominatrix, I would’ve let you tie me up from the start.”

She isn’t, though. She’s never done this before, tied a guy up, taken control, but she has to admit, it feels good. Really damn good. Frank is such a tall, buff, intimidating, takes-no-shit kind of guy, always in control, always in charge, and here he is, at her mercy, giving himself to her. Submitting.

This isn’t like Fifty Shades of Grey, though. None of the weird sex toys or contracts or emotional abuse. This is just for fun. Experimental.

And wow, also kind of… really hot.

Frank’s voice breaks into her reverie. “You gonna whip me if I misbehave? Because I could totally get into that.”

That earns him a sharp tug on one of the ties binding his wrists to the headboard of her bed. “Cut it out.”

“Legal Aid guy ever let you tie him up like this?”

Laurel almost laughs. Kan’s idea of kinky is… well, anything that isn’t the missionary position. To say their sex life is lacking variety would be an understatement.

“No. And you’re not very good at this whole submissive thing, for the record.”

He ignores that. “What do you want me to call you? Ma’am? Mistress?”

“I want you,” she says firmly, in an attempt to regain some semblance of control, “to stop talking.”

She’s stark naked, and Frank is shirtless, wearing only a pair of black slacks. His left wrist she’d tied with the tie he’d had on, and his right she had bound with one of the ties Kan had left at her place.

Laurel really doesn’t want to think about the moral implications of using one of her boyfriend’s ties to practice bondage on the guy she’s cheating on him with. All she knows is that if there’s a hell, she’s definitely going, and Frank is coming with her.

Having finished securing the ties, Laurel finds herself at a loss for what to do, because when she’d imagined this in her head she hadn’t actually ever gotten this far. She guesses she could slap him or something, but the idea of physically hurting Frank freaks her out. This should be about pleasure, not pain, right?

Yeah. _Her_ pleasure.

She makes up her mind, and clambers atop Frank to straddle his face, hovering over his mouth, so wet that she almost drips onto him. She’s never done _this_ before, either, but she has a pretty good idea of how it will go down. And she can do whatever she wants, for however long she wants, because he isn’t going anywhere fast. The thought makes her burn between her legs.

As a look of understanding crosses his face, Frank chuckles. “Don’t I get a safewor-“

Irritated, she delves down against the warmth of his open mouth, muffling his words immediately. He really does talk too much sometimes, and sitting on his face seems to be by far the most effective way to shut him up.

With a soft moan, Laurel places her hands flat against the headboard to steady herself. She can feel the bristle of his beard on the insides of her thighs, her clit. She could come almost from that feeling alone, but she won’t. She doesn’t want to let him get her there so quickly. It’ll only puff up his already over-inflated ego, and this isn’t about him. She’s in control here.

And _Jesus_ , she’s so turned on that she could die.

Frank would probably tease her, lick her slowly if he were in charge, but he doesn’t have much of a choice now as she grinds down frantically on his mouth, moisture coating his lips, all the way up to his nose. He laps her up greedily, like he’s been wandering in the desert for weeks and she is his first taste of water, occasionally latching his lips onto her clit and sucking gently at it. She goes downright weak when he does, her arms like gelatin, and has to make a conscious effort not to collapse on top of him.

Laurel wonders for a moment if he can even breathe, but decides not to worry too much about it. If Frank was going to die, she’s pretty sure he’d be okay with drowning in her.

“Frank,” she cries, picking up pace, grinding down harder. “God, oh my _God_.”

It’s been almost no time at all, and she’s already lost in the whirlwind of sensations: his burning hot, wet mouth wide on her cunt, the swirling of his eager tongue in all the right places, the feeling of his face burrowed there between her thighs, like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.

Her thighs start to tremble, her sex fluttering in the first throes of orgasm, but just as he feels her start to come, he ceases moving his tongue altogether, stemming the flow of her ecstasy. Laurel almost screams in frustration, rocking on top of him desperately, her legs clasped hard around his head.

She’s so close that she can’t breathe. She could kill him right now; she really could. And if she was actually into inflicting real physical pain, she would _so_ be punishing him for this later. 

“Don’t you-“ she gives a sound that almost sounds like a growl. She isn’t going to beg. _He’s_ the one who should beg. “Don’t stop, I-I’m gonna… I’m so-“

Laurel can’t see his face, but she can feel his lips move against her sex, and she realizes that he must be smirking.

Oh hell no.

She’s about to grab a handful of his hair and force his mouth back on her when he finally opens his mouth and murmurs something right onto her clit. Or maybe he moans – Laurel isn’t sure, but it has the effect he wants, and the deep vibrations of his voice carry her over the edge. She throws her head back and half-sobs in release, his name and all other kinds of nonsensical words tumbling from her lips. 

Her vision is spinning from the force of her pleasure, and Laurel has to blink a few times before she’s able to see straight again. Panting, she slides herself off of his face so that she is straddling his legs instead, and makes a point not to look at him. She knows just how he’ll look, like he always does after he eats her out – smug and self-satisfied as hell – and she’s a little afraid she won’t be able to control herself if she sees him. She just might grab his head and drag it back between her legs again, and hold it there for hours, until she’s come so many times that she can’t even remember how to speak.

Finally, Laurel lets herself look at him, and he looks just like she was afraid he would: smug as hell, his face glistening with her wetness. She can’t help but lean in to kiss him, tasting herself all over his lips, his beard. She’d practically soaked him, and he’s breathing like a swimmer coming up for air.

“Well,” he says, raising his eyebrows, “somebody was jonesing for a mustache ride.”

She manages a laugh. “Need to catch your breath?”

“Yeah. Another minute and I would’ve needed mouth-to-mouth.”

“I think… I can arrange that,” she teases, and kisses him again, her tongue exploring his mouth as deeply as it can go.  

“So what?” Frank asks after she pulls away. “You just gonna leave me like this?”

Laurel isn’t sure if he’s referring to the ties on his wrists or the hard-on in his slacks, but either way it doesn’t matter. She contemplates untying Frank and simply telling him to go, but after the way he’d just made her feel… it seems like it would be cruel. And sure, she wants to be in control, but she doesn’t want to be downright _mean_.

So she pulls at the ties on Frank’s wrists until they come undone, and in seconds he’s upon her, flipping their positions and kissing her so deeply it’s like he wants to consume her entirely. The only thing she tastes is herself, and her body arches against him, and when he slides inside of her she moans and moans like there’s no tomorrow, like they’re the only two people in the world.

 

\--

 

It’s only after Frank has left, and she’s making the bed while waiting for Kan to come over, that Laurel actually starts to think over her current situation without the haze of sex clouding her thoughts.

The first thing she realizes is that she doesn’t feel guilty.

She should. She’s cheating on her near-perfect boyfriend on a regular basis, and what makes it worse is that this isn’t even the first time she’s done it. And she doesn’t want to stop; she _can’t_ stop. She wants Frank so much that she barely recognizes herself, barely remembers the sweet, honest girl she’d been before who never would’ve even dreamed of infidelity.

But she feels like a horny teenager around him most of the time. Whenever he isn’t inside her, she craves him. Whenever he is, she can never seem to get enough. He makes her wet just by looking at her, gets her off with only a few strokes of his fingers.

Laurel doesn’t know how she got to such a sorry state, but it’s too late to go back now, even if she wanted to.

Pragmatically speaking, she’s getting the best of both worlds: romance from Kan, sex from Frank, but when she looks at it that way, she feels really fucking selfish, and also a lot like a slut. Because she spreads her legs for Frank, and then turns around and smiles for Kan like it’s nothing, and what kind of person does that make her, really?

A horrible one.

Yeah. She’s a horrible person. She doesn’t know how it took her so long to realize it. She’s a horrible person because she doesn't feel guilty when she’s with Frank. It doesn’t feel like a mistake, when it _should_ , because it probably _is_.

She hops in the shower to wash the smell of sex off of her, and just as she steps out Kan arrives, with two bags of groceries in hand to make them dinner. She’s so used to subsisting off of takeout that a home-cooked meal is a more than welcome prospect, and she grins from ear-to-ear.

“Hey,” he greets and pecks her on the lips. “Someone’s in a good mood.”

Of course she is. Sex with Frank always puts her in a good mood.

Pushing that thought away, Laurel just laughs. “I had a good day. It’s better now that you’re here, though.”

“I was thinking chicken parm tonight,” he says, setting the bags down on the counter. “Sound good?”

“Yeah,” she nods with a smile. “Sounds perfect.”

She takes a seat at the table, chatting away with Kan as he cooks, and she finds herself pondering again just how perfect he is. How, if she could just have with him what she has with Frank, then everything would be simple. In theory Frank is all wrong for her. He’s way older than she is, and he’s a pompous ass – not to mention the fact that he’s her co-worker/kind-of-boss.

He’s all wrong in all the right ways, and she can’t get him out of her head.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Kan says suddenly, startling her.

“Oh, I was just… thinking about you.” The lie slips off her tongue so easily that it scares her. Laurel stands, and wraps her arms around him from behind, squeezing just a bit tighter than usual. “About how happy I am.”


	4. Putty

Frank is having trouble focusing.

They’re at the office with everyone else, in the living room looking over files for their newest case. It’s boring as hell, but it’s the kind of mindless work he’s usually fine with, and the kind he _would_ be fine with tonight, if it weren’t for one not-so-little complication.

Laurel.

From his spot leaning against the doorway, he has a clear line of sight to her, in her usual seat on the couch. That alone would kind of distract him already, but at some point in the night she’d decided to make it her mission to screw with him, and started sucking on a lollipop with her eyes practically burning into his. Everyone else is too absorbed in their work to notice – but Frank does. She makes sure of that.

After a while, she starts crossing and uncrossing her knee sock-clad legs way more often than she needs to, and that makes him sweat, but it isn’t anything he can’t handle, even though she has – _again_ – elected to not wear tights under her skirt. The last straw for him is when she starts swirling her tongue around the lollipop much more vigorously than anyone would ever need to, giving him a pretty damn good idea of the other things she could be doing with it. As that thought creeps into his mind, he feels himself start to harden in his slacks, and he clenches his jaw in irritation. Normally he’s better at controlling these kind of things.

He shifts a manila folder in front of his groin awkwardly, and that erases the problem from sight. Out of sight, out of mind.

Except it isn’t. Not at all.

Finally, Frank manages to make himself stop looking at her, because he knows continuing to do so is only going to make this problem worse – much worse. Apparently that frustrates Laurel, because she gets up from her seat after a minute under the guise of trying to find a file in the stack directly in front of him.

And then she bends down, granting him a view of her ass that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and that’s it. He can’t take this anymore.

Frank glares at her and slams down the file that isn’t concealing his erection. She notices, and nods toward the kitchen, the stick of the lollipop still jutting out from between her lips. It pisses him off. It really does, almost as much as it turns him on, because this isn’t _him_. He isn’t pathetic, desperate, and he definitely isn’t whipped. Yeah, so he’d let Laurel make him beg, and he’d let her tie him up and have her way with him – but he’s Frank Delfino, and he is not _whipped_ for Christ’s sake.

But he follows her in a heartbeat, without even giving it second thought, and it occurs to him out of the blue that he is. He _so_ is. She's leading him around by his prick, like a dog on a leash. He's fucking putty in her hands.

And he loves it.

As soon as they’re in the kitchen and he’s sure they’re alone, Frank presses her up against the counter. “You trying to kill me?”

“Depends,” Laurel murmurs with a shrug. “Is it working?”

“Is it working,” he echoes with a scoff, moving the folder aside to reveal the bulge in his slacks. “Of course it’s working. How the hell am I supposed to focus when you’re doing that?”

She pulls the lollipop out of her mouth and twirls it around between her fingers. “So it’s _my_ fault _you_ can’t pay attention?”

“You’re damn right it is,” he growls. “Especially when you’re licking that lollipop like you’re trying to get it off. No way am I going back out there like this.”

“And you expect me to help with that… how?” she asks, feigning innocence.

He pulls her closer. This is a new side of Laurel, the coy temptress, and holy hell does it get him going. “I could think of a few ways.”

“And if I said no, and I left, and you went to… take care of it yourself,” she starts slowly, “would you think of me?”

“What kinda question is that?” Frank lowers his voice. “You know I would.”

Laurel pauses, looking up at him with heavily lidded eyes, and his breath catches in his throat when he feels her hands start to venture south. “Do you always?”

He nods, unashamed. “Yeah.”

 _I think about you all the time. It’s freakin’ annoying_ , he’d said to her once, a lifetime ago. That had been a lie, even then; he cherishes every thought of her, every memory of her kisses, her touch. Every time his mind wanders it wanders back to Laurel. He can’t escape from thoughts of her, and he hasn’t even really been able to check out a girl in weeks, because every time he tries to he thinks of Laurel, and compares her to Laurel, and realizes that he doesn’t want her, not really, because he has Laurel.

Shit. How did he get in so deep so fast?

The sound of approaching footsteps startles him out of his thoughts, and in the blink of an eye, Frank pulls her over to the doors connecting the kitchen to Annalise’s office. Annalise had disappeared to do something probably Nate-related half an hour ago, leaving her office uninhabited, and after leading Laurel inside, he closes the doors behind them, just in time to see Connor and Michaela wander over to the coffee pot.

Not wasting any time, he turns to Laurel, curls his arms around her, and kisses her as hard as he can. She tastes sweet, the sugar from the lollipop coating her lips. Her perfume is gentle and enticing, pulling him in like the force of gravity. He wants it on him, all over him.

Laurel grins against his lips and urges him backwards until the backs of his legs hit Annalise’s office chair. It only takes a light push from Laurel to send him down into it, and he lands with a smirk.

“Really? We doing this here?”

“Well,” Laurel shrugs, and slowly sinks down onto her knees before him, “if you don’t want my help, I can always get back to work.”

“Nah. Work can wait. And that’s a direct order from the boss, Miss Castillo.”

Laurel blushes when he calls her that, her pupils dilated with want. She reaches out and undoes his belt, unzipping his pants and shifting them down just enough to leave his groin accessible to her. Then, she leans in and lays kisses on his cock through the fabric of his boxer briefs, her tongue darting out to lick him occasionally, until he’s so hard that he actually begins to leak. Finally, as if sensing his desperation, Laurel hooks her fingers into the elastic band of his underwear and eases them down as well, allowing his erection to spring free, flushed and aching.

She doesn’t take him into her mouth at first, and instead presses a kiss to the sensitive head of his cock, finally drawing a deep, rumbling groan from Frank. She strokes up and down his shaft for a moment, feeling him throb in her palm, and then follows her hands with her tongue in short order – and _Jesus_ , it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen in his life.

“I like how you taste,” her soft voice floats up from the floor, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

He swallows, hard, and tightens his hold on the armrests until his knuckles go white.

Getting head at your boss’s desk is a surefire way to lose your job, and that’s precisely what would happen if someone were to walk in on them right now. But Laurel’s mouth is on his cock, and one of her hands is cradling his balls, and Frank decides quickly that he doesn’t care. He really fucking _doesn’t care at all._

And then all at once Laurel is looking at him, her lips wet and swollen, and bowing her head, and taking him into her mouth, and the last bit of rational thought in Frank’s head vanishes, right then and there. The sight of her lips wrapped around him is almost as satisfying as the feeling, and he clenches his jaw to keep from moaning, his head falling back against the chair.

“Laurel…” he groans. “Fucking _hell_.”

He’s gotten plenty of blowjobs in his life, from girls whose faces he can’t even remember, and they’d been great; no guy in his right mind would say anything else. But knowing that it’s Laurel – Laurel, on her knees; Laurel, with her sweet lips wrapped around him – almost sends him over the top in the blink of an eye.

She hollows out her cheeks and sucks harder, her head bobbing up and down. The sensation of her hot, wet mouth on him is heaven, with the added bonus of her tongue, which she swirls around as if she can’t get enough of his taste. Every now and then she gives a soft little moan, and the vibrations drive Frank crazy. It’s a struggle not to thrust up into her mouth and pull on her hair, but he doesn’t; he stays still, tucking her hair behind her ear instead and stroking it gently as he watches her.

“I’m gonna-” a moan cuts him off. He can’t think. He can feel himself teetering on the edge, and by now he’s lost all ability to articulate his thoughts. “Fuck…”

Laurel doesn’t move away like he’d thought she would. She stays right where she is, picking up pace, and one look down at her is all it takes for Frank. Their eyes meet, and he comes inside her mouth with a deep growl, the pleasure white-hot and dizzying. She swallows down every last drop of him – and scratch that, _that_ is the hottest thing he’s ever seen in his life.

Laurel pulls away after a minute, and demurely wipes her mouth with one hand. The sight makes arousal surge through him again, and when she gets to her feet, Frank reaches out, tugging her into his lap.

“Come home with me,” he urges, the plea sounding all too familiar on his lips. Tonight, though, there’s an added air of desperation in it.

She sighs, melting against him as he sucks at her neck. “I can’t. You know Kan comes over on Wednesdays.”

“C’mon. You can’t just give me the best head of my life and not let me reciprocate.”

He sees Laurel start to waver, and she meets his eyes with a grin. “Reciprocate… how, exactly?”

“By eating you out until you’re screaming. How’s that sound?”

“I…” she sighs again, lowering her eyes. “I don’t know, Frank, I-“

Normally Frank would’ve let it go by now, but he isn’t above begging, not tonight. To hell with his pride. He wants her. He _needs_ her.

“Cancel on him. Let me take you home with me. Please, Laurel.” She doesn’t answer, and he pulls her closer, kissing her tenderly. “Please.”

“Okay,” she finally breathes. “Fine. But you’ll have to make it worth my while.”

He grins, and reaches down to give her ass a firm squeeze. “Oh, you better believe I will, babe.”

 

\--

 

And that’s how she ends up on his bed, naked and moaning, her legs spread wide and his face buried in between her splayed thighs.

Laurel grabs onto his sheets and balls them up in her fist, her hips bucking up into the heat of his mouth. She hadn’t meant to give in to Frank so easily, but after he’d promised to make it worth her while, and looked at her with those eyes of his, well… she couldn’t have possibly said no. And now she’s glad she didn’t, because his wicked tongue is in all the right places, licking and sucking, and it’s so good that she could scream loud enough for his neighbors to hear.

The sudden shrill ringing of her phone on the nightstand, however, kills the mood very effectively. Laurel looks over to see who it is, and finds Kan’s contact photo smiling back at her.  

“Crap,” she hisses, reaching over to pick it up. “It’s Kan. I-I forgot to call him.”

“Give it to me,” he jokes. “I’ll answer.”

“No. I’ll be quick. Just… wait a sec,” Laurel tells him, lying back against the pillows and putting the phone up to her ear. “Kan. Hey.”

“ _Hey. I’m at your place with Chinese. Where’re you?_ ”

“Oh, I’m-“

Laurel stops talking the moment she feels the familiar sensation of a beard scratching her inner thighs. She freezes, and looks down between her legs only to find Frank there, kneeling at the end of the bed and gazing up at her with his eyebrows raised.    

Oh, God. He cannot do this _now._

Laurel shoots him the angriest glare she can muster, but Frank only chuckles, the vibrations carrying across onto her clit and making her squirm.

“C-can you hold on a second?” she manages to stammer.

“ _Uh, yeah_ ,” Kan says. “ _Sure_.”

Furious, she covers the phone’s microphone as best she can and hisses, “Frank! What the hell?”

“What?” he pretends not to know what she’s talking about. “Don’t mind me.”

Laurel gulps, takes a moment to steady her voice, and puts the phone up to her ear again, praying that she won’t sound out of breath.  

“Sorry about that,” she forces a nervous laugh. “I’m so sorry I forgot to call you. Professor Keating…”

There he goes again, suckling gently at her clit, teasing her. She gulps, and tries to continue, “Professor Keating has us working late again. We, uh, we…”

She’s losing her train of thought, and Frank’s picking up his pace, his tongue moving in a practiced, masterful pattern. All at once she realizes what his game is: he’s trying to make her come before she hangs up the phone.

Well, it’s not going to work. She can fight this. _Focus, Laurel, focus._

“We just got a really important case today,” she finally blurts out.

There’s a pause at the other end of the line. Then: “ _Are you okay, babe? You sound out of breath_.”

Dammit. She really is a horrible person, getting eaten out by another guy while on the phone with her boyfriend. But she doesn’t have the willpower to force Frank to stop, and so she doesn’t – even though she should, because that’s what a good girlfriend would do.

Well, a good girlfriend wouldn’t be getting head from someone who isn’t her boyfriend in the first place, but that’s beside the point.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just…” Frank grazes his teeth lightly across her clit, and she gasps, twitching. “I’m just kinda busy right now.”

“Yeah you are,” Frank chimes in, and Laurel gives her thighs a tight squeeze on his head to let him know that she doesn’t appreciate the commentary.

“ _Well, I’ll leave the food in the fridge. It’ll be good leftover_ ,” Kan says, sounding so chipper that it kills her. “ _What time you think you’ll be done? I can wait._ ”

What time will she be done? With the pace Frank is going, any second now. Laurel holds back a moan when she feels him start to switch up the movements on her clit all of a sudden. He’s probably spelling his name on her with his tongue, because he’s into that, and she has to admit, she is too. A lot.

“Probably… past midnight. Seriously, don’t wait for me.”

“ _Oh, okay. That’s fine. Sometime this weekend, then? How’s Saturday_?”

Frank reaches his hands up and around to massage her breasts, coaxing her even closer to the edge. His hands are everywhere. His tongue is everywhere. She’s close, and Laurel knows it. She needs to escape this conversation right now, because the last thing she wants is Kan hearing her cries of ecstasy at the hands of another man.

“Saturday would be great. Listen, I… I gotta go – _oh_. I’ll talk to you later, ‘kay?”

“ _Okay. Love you_.”

If Laurel wasn’t about to come, she would probably feel really, really bad. But she can’t bring herself to care, and so she just bites out a terse, “Yeah, love you too,” and ends the call as quick as she can, tossing the phone onto the bed next to her. Her hands reach down and grab onto Frank’s hair, but, much to her dismay, he stops.

“Darn. I was gonna tell you to tell him that Frank says hi.”

She whimpers in frustration. “Just… just keep going, I’m so close…”

He only moves further away, wiping her wetness off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Y’know, now that I think about it, Chinese sounds great. I’ll order in.”

“ _Frank_!” she exclaims, with an edge in her voice that makes him stop in his tracks. “If you don’t get back over here I swear to God-“

“Hey, no need to bring God into this,” Frank scolds with a smile, but walks obediently back over to the bed and kneels again. “The good Lord doesn’t approve of these kinds of activities.”

And yeah, she decides as he opens his mouth and goes to work again. This is _definitely_  worth her while. 


	5. Aural

Every night of the week – except Wednesday, because that’s Kan’s day – they go home together, either to Frank’s place or hers.

Laurel’s never had so much sex before in her life. She’s starting to wonder when a person crosses the line into sex addict territory, but eventually decides not to worry about it. It’s not like it’s detrimental to her health, aside from the fact that she misses out on a few more hours of sleep every night.

On the contrary, actually; she’s more relaxed than she’s been in months.

They never spend the whole night together, though – that’s her one stipulation. Either she leaves or she makes him leave, because she may be sleeping with Frank, but actually _sleeping with_ Frank would make this feel like something it isn’t, which is official. Frank occupies her nights, and Kan occupies her days. She never lets the lines blur. It’s simple.

But every time she walks out on Frank, she sees his face fall a little, and something in his eyes dies a bit more each time. She’s hurting him, and she’s hurting Kan, although Kan doesn’t know it. It seems like a cruel cycle, and an unsustainable one.

Most of the time, she tries not to think about it.

Laurel makes a point not to see Frank on the weekends. On the weekends she fakes it with Kan, and tries not to imagine another face and another set of arms, and another voice moaning her name.

 

\--

 

Two weeks later, they get a new client: a rich middle-aged man on trial for the murder of his ex-wife.

All signs point towards him being guilty, when he finally throws Annalise a lifeline; a man now living in Boston, his former drug dealer, who he’d been with at the time of the murder. Predictably, Annalise sends Frank to find him, because tracking down shady people is kind of Frank’s specialty.

He leaves on Monday, and is gone all week. By Friday night, Laurel is about ready to crawl out of her skin.

She’s curled up in her bed trying to read a book for her criminology class when her mind starts to wander for the thousandth time that day, and she curses herself. Is she really so pathetic that she can’t survive a few days without Frank? Before she’d been able to make it just fine without him, so why should it be any different now? Eventually, she makes up her mind to block out any and all thoughts of him, but her brain is like a net filled with holes; no matter how hard she tries, some slip through anyway, and then she loses herself in thinking about him all over again.

Laurel sighs and looks over at her phone on the nightstand. She could call Kan, ask him to come over after he’s done with work. Seeing Kan would be nice, but she doesn’t _need_ to see him, like she needs to see Frank.

She could call Kan, and she probably should, but her own self-destructive tendencies win out as she reaches for her phone, opens up a new message, and types Frank’s name in the recipient box instead.

 _I miss you_ , she writes, and then hits send before she has time to change her mind.

Immediately, Laurel feels stupid. That’s the kind of text a girl would send to her boyfriend; not to the guy she’s screwing behind her real boyfriend’s back. She’d made it very clear to him that they aren’t and never will be anything official, so why the hell did she just write that?

 _Because you meant it_ , a nagging little voice tells her.

Her phone vibrates with a reply a minute later.

- _I’m flattered. I’ll be back tomorrow_

She’s starting to wonder if that’s all he’s going to say when her phone goes off again.

- _You know, you never did return the favor after I took that picture of myself._ _Now’s as good a time as any_

Laurel rolls her eyes.

- _Fine_

She opens the camera app, but instead of taking off her shirt, she just stares straight-faced into the camera and holds up her middle finger. She sends that to him, and not even a minute later her phone lights up with an incoming call. Frank’s shirtless contact picture stares back at her, and she almost laughs aloud.

She really needs to get around to changing that one of these days.

“Yes?” she answers in the most snarky tone she can muster.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Frank says. She’s surprised at how good it feels to hear his voice, like velvet in her ear. “Didn’t know you’d been spending all week lusting after me in my absence.”

“I was not _lusting_ after you,” she scoffs, although yeah, she kind of was. “I was just… I don’t know. Thinking about you.”

“I’m three hundred miles away in a shitty hotel room. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.” There’s a pause on his end of the line. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Where are you?”

The question strikes her as a little odd. “In bed. Why?”

“Alone?”

“Do you really think I would’ve answered your call if I was in bed with Kan?”

“What’re you wearing?”

She freezes. “W-what’re you doing?”

“What do you think?” he sounds amused.

_Oh my God._

“Are you… Are you trying to have _phone sex_ with me?”

She can practically see the smirk on his face. “Deduced that one pretty quick, babe.”

“Frank!” she hisses, though, judging by the multitude of times they’ve had sex in semi-public places, she guesses that she doesn’t really have the right to be scandalized by this.

“Look, either way I’m gonna jerk off tonight thinking about you. Help me out here,” he says matter-of-factly.

She blinks. At least he’s honest. “Okay. I…I’ll do it.”

“You ever done this before?”

“No. I’m guessing you have, though.”

Frank chuckles. The sound makes her skin break out in goosebumps. “Many times. Lay down.”

She swallows, and does as he says. “Okay. I am.”

“You never told me what you were wearing, y’know,” he deepens his voice. Laurel’s mouth suddenly feels dry.

“Uh, just pajamas.” That doesn’t sound sexy at all. But she guesses the point of this is to somehow _make_ it sound sexy, and so she adds, “No underwear, though. So if you were here there wouldn’t be anything in your way.”

“And so you decided to sit at home alone on a Friday night thinking about me instead of calling your boyfriend to keep you company?”

“I could’ve, I just… I missed you. How you make me feel. I fake it all the time with Kan, and it’s…” she sighs. She wishes she were exaggerating for Frank’s benefit, but she isn’t. “It’s never as good it is with you.”

“You ever fake it with me?”

“Of course not,” she replies. The idea of having to fake it with Frank makes her want to laugh. “I never have to.”

“Don’t. Ever. If I’m getting off then so are you. That’s my golden rule.”

She grins. “I’m swooning.”

“Yeah, well. You should be.”

“This isn’t really getting me going, if that’s the point,” she quips. “Or am I only doing this for your benefit?”

“Both our benefits,” he purrs. “Do you know what I’d do to you if I was there?”

Laurel exhales sharply. This is starting to get frustrating. “Are you going to keep asking me questions or are you just going to tell me already?”

“Someone’s impatient tonight,” he teases, and her breath hitches in her throat when he begins, “Maybe I’d rip all your clothes off. Not take them off – _rip_ them off. Then I’d bend you over your kitchen table and fuck you until you couldn’t walk straight, so hard you’d be sore in the morning. Wherever you went, you’d feel it. Whenever you squeezed your thighs together you’d remember what I did to you, and it’d make you so wet you wouldn’t be able to sit still. Everywhere you went you’d be thinking about it, and no one would know but you and me. Our little secret.”

Jesus. She can’t believe she forgot how _good_ Frank is at talking dirty.

With a gulp, Laurel lifts her legs and tugs her sweatpants off, leaving her lower half bare. His voice is like sex, leaving her wet and throbbing already, and slowly, she reaches over into her nightstand.

Yeah, she’s the not-so-proud owner of a vibrator. A little hot pink bullet, which she’d bought while at Brown during one of the periods when she’d been single for almost a year. She hasn’t used it in a while, and it causes her a bit of shame to own, but it gets the job done.

And there is a job to be done tonight, and someone – or some _thing_ – needs to do it.

“Wait,” she blurts out. Frank is still talking, and she doesn’t want to miss a second of what he’s saying. “I-I have to get my…”

She drifts off. Oh, no way in hell is she admitting to him that she owns a _vibrator_. She’ll never hear the end of it.

She hopes he won’t ask, but – just her luck – he does. “Your what?”

“Nothing,” Laurel mutters, withdrawing the vibe and lying back down. “Keep going.”

“Laurel…”

“My… my vibrator, okay?” she finally admits, her cheeks flushing.

Frank gives a half-moan, half-laugh. “You own a vibrator, princess?”

“Yeah. What? Is that surprising?” she asks in a small voice, unsure if he’s making fun of her.

“Let me guess. It is hot pink?”

Laurel gapes, turning the toy over in her hand. “H-how did you know?”

“God, you’re such a typical Brown girl,” he jokes. “Though Brown girls don’t usually own sex toys to begin with.”

“It’s not like I – you know what? I never should’ve told you; it’s embarrassing-“

“No. It’s not,” he reassures her. “It’s hot as hell, actually. Now quit talking and turn it on. Spread your legs.”

She chews on her lower lip, but switches it on nonetheless. A soft buzz emanates from the toy, and she moves it down between her legs, rubbing it gently over her clit, careful not to apply too much pressure too quickly.  

She wants to make this last.

“Okay,” she breathes. “It’s… on.”

On the other end of the line, she hears the rustling of fabric, and Frank groans. “Thinking of me?”

 _Of course. Who else would I think about?_ she wants to shoot back, but she’s done being argumentative tonight. She knows what she wants, and it isn’t witty banter.

“Yeah,” Laurel sighs contently. She doesn’t really know how to actually _have_ phone sex, but to hell with it. She’ll give it her best shot. “I think about you all the time. How you feel… inside me. And your beard…”

She hadn’t really meant to say that last part aloud. Frank chuckles. “The beard gets you off?”

“Yeah,” Laurel murmurs. “ _Oh_ yeah. H-how it feels-”

“Between your legs?” Frank finishes for her, and wow, yeah, that had exactly what she’d been thinking. Frank’s breathing sounds heavy, but is voice is no less hypnotic. “While I eat you out, lap up every last drop of you? If I was there I’d make you come, over and over… so many times you wouldn’t even be able to remember your own goddamn _name._ Trust me, now that you’ve had me, no other guy’ll ever satisfy you again. They won’t be as big as me, and they sure as hell won’t be as good.”

He’s bragging. Normally that kind of bravado puts her off, but… the fact that that isn’t even a lie just makes his words infinitely hotter.

“Frank…” she whimpers. “ _Oh_.”

The pressure is building between her legs, the vibrations gently urging her closer to climax. It isn’t fast, mind-blowing release, but the gentle sensation, coupled with Frank’s voice, is divine. 

Laurel shifts the toy just so – and _there_ it is. The sweet spot. She holds it there, squeezing her eyes shut and curling her toes.

“How’s it feel?” he almost bites out the words. He sounds close, and so Laurel decides to help him along.

“Good,” she gasps. “Good. Not as good as you.”

On his end of the line, she hears him give a quiet moan.

She keeps going, her voice light and airy. “I want you inside me. A-all the time. I think about it. I…I _dream_ about it. I can’t stop. I used to be able to… _control_ myself, but I’ve been thinking about you all week and I can’t stop; I can’t _stop_.”

Frank groans, long and deep and strangled, and the instant she hears it she knows he’s finished. Then, much to her surprise, he growls her name, so harshly in her ear that it almost makes her shake to pieces right away.

“ _Laurel_.”

She gives up trying to talk. The sound of her name on his lips as he reaches the apex of his pleasure is enough to leave her teetering on the cliff, close, so, so _close_. Any second now, any second and-

Suddenly, the vibrations cut out. The vibrator whirs to a stop out of nowhere, and she almost screams in frustration when she realizes what has happened.

The batteries are dead.

“Dammit,” she whines, resisting the urge to chuck the thing across the room. “ _Ugh._ ”

Those aren’t the sounds she usually makes when she comes, and Frank notices. “You okay, babe?”

She’s so unsatisfied she could cry. “The batteries. They died.”

“Aw, you got blue balls now? Don’t worry. I’ll finish you off. I don’t need a piece of plastic to do the job for me.”

“No,” Laurel clenches her jaw. “I can’t, now. The moment is just… gone.”

“Hey, I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll take care of you then. I know Saturdays are usually off-limits, but-“

“I don’t care,” she interrupts him forcefully. She isn’t thinking straight, doesn’t really know what she’s saying. The endorphins rushing through her take control of her tongue. “Come over. Stay all night.”

“Fine by me. One condition, though.”

Laurel clenches her jaw. She is _not_ in the mood for negotiation right now. “What?”

“I stay all night, _and_ I cook you breakfast in the morning.”

The proposal is a totally innocuous one, but it makes Laurel go tense. “Frank-“

“Look, you wanna get off or not? Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.”

“Okay,” she grinds out reluctantly. “Fine.”

Every other girl would probably be thrilled at the idea of a guy staying all night and then making them breakfast in the morning, but Laurel knows what this means, what Frank wants. He wants something deeper, something real – and she can’t give that to him, even though part of her is starting to really, really want to. She can’t _let_ herself give that to him, not if she’s going to continue to be able to successfully compartmentalize her relationships with Frank and Kan.

“Try not to sound so thrilled,” Frank japes. “Sweet dreams, Laurel. If you’re lucky I might be in ‘em.”

Laurel doesn’t reply. She just hangs up the call and lets out a deep breath, her head falling back against the pillow with a _thump_.


	6. Bind

The next night, Frank appears at her doorstep at nine on the dot. 

He waits nervously after knocking, his palms sweating like a schoolboy. He’d bought all the ingredients to make her the best goddamn breakfast she’s ever tasted, and his most expensive bottle of wine. He can’t remember the last time he tried so hard for a woman. He’s not sure he ever has.

He’s never wanted this thing between them to be just sex, though he’s not going to lie: the sex is a huge plus. But he wants to cook Laurel breakfast, dinner. He wants to shower with her in the mornings and hold her during the nights, and he’s never really wanted that before with a girl, ever.

Now, he wants that with Laurel, more than he can ever remember wanting anything. And Laurel doesn’t.

Karma’s a real bitch.

But she’s finally given him a chance, albeit reluctantly. He isn’t going to screw this up.

The door swings open, and there is Laurel, dressed in a pair of black tights and a Middleton U sweatshirt, her hair loose around her shoulders. It’s a look he almost never sees on her, but she looks good. Really good.

“Hey,” she greets, and steps aside to let him in.

“How’s it going, princess?” he jokes as he walks inside. “Miss me?”

“Yeah. A lot. Uh, what we did over the phone was… nice.”

“Just _nice_?” he chuckles, and sets the grocery bags and wine down on the counter. “I brought the stuff for breakfast. I make the best French toast you’ll ever-“

A pair of lips on his own silence Frank before he can say another word. Laurel stands on her tiptoes and curls her arms around him, and he pulls away, amused.

“Eager much?”

“I can’t wait,” she admits.

She leans in to kiss him again, but he moves back. “Look, I don’t know what kind of guy you think I am, but I don’t normally put out on the first date.”

That draws a laugh from Laurel. “Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

“Yeah, well. You’d be right. At least let me hang up my coat before you try to jump my bones here.”

In one swift motion, Laurel kisses him, hooks her hands into the sleeves of his coat, and sends it tumbling to the floor.

“There,” she pants. “It’s off.”

He’s never seen her like this: cheeks aflame, breathing heavy, barely able to keep her hands off him. Not that he’s complaining, of course – but he’d wanted to take it slow tonight. A glass of wine. Pleasant conversation. Foreplay.

Clearly, none of that is on Laurel’s agenda.

Her hands go for his belt, and he can’t help but chuckle. “Woah. Hey. Slow down.”

“I can’t,” Laurel whines petulantly. “You promised you would-”

“Get you off? Christ, is it really that bad?”

Curious, he slides his hands into Laurel’s tights, down between her legs, and he doesn’t even have to dip his finger inside to feel the heat radiating from her. She’s sopping wet; he can even feel a gentle pulsing of desire between her legs, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. She’s gotten this way just from his kiss. He hasn’t even really _touched_ her yet. The thought makes him hard almost instantly.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you missed me,” he teases. “Well. I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“Are you gonna do what you said?” she manages to ask in between kisses, as they stumble backwards toward the bedroom. “B… bend me over the table?”

“As tempting as that sounds, no.”

“No?”

“I can’t watch you come that way,” he explains with a growl, his hands groping at her ass. “I fucking _love_ watching you come.”

Eventually, they make their way into the bedroom, collapsing onto the bed with him on top of her. Frank helps her tug her sweatshirt over her head, and is about to reach for his own when a thought occurs to him.

“So,” he raises an eyebrow. “Where’s this famous vibrator of yours?”

It’s hard to see Laurel in the darkness, but she’s illuminated enough by the moonlight pouring in from the window that he’s able to see her blush.  

“I-I…” she stammers. “I can’t _show you_.”

“You can’t?” he leans in, placing kisses along her jawline. “Don’t see why not.”

Finally, Laurel sits up and sighs. “Fine. But don’t laugh.”

She reaches over into her nightstand and withdraws the toy with her eyes lowered, handing it over to him. It’s small, and hot pink, just like he’d guessed. The sight makes him chuckle. He never would’ve guessed that quiet, innocent-looking Laurel would actually _own_ a sex toy, but hey. She continues to surprise him, and the thought of Laurel getting herself off with this, or just touching herself in general… It makes his blood run hot in his veins.  

A grin plays at his lips. “Didn’t they teach you in that fancy Catholic school that masturbating is a one-way ticket to hell?”

“Something along those lines. But I never understood why sex was supposed to be so bad.”

“Sex is good for you,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes. “Trust me. I’m a doctor.”

Frank reaches out and tugs Laurel into his lap. They’re both almost still fully clothed, with Laurel down only a shirt, which normally is a situation he would’ve rectified long before they even reached the bed. But tonight he wants to take his time, savor every last delicious minute with her. Laurel squeaks in surprise, and he kisses the sound the second it leaves her mouth, tossing the vibe off the bed carelessly.

“You’ll never need that again as long as you have me,” he promises. “You can hold me to that. I’ll get you something else. Something we’ll both have fun with.”

She gives him a look of trepidation. “Like another… toy?”

He just winks at her. “You’ll see.”

Frank reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra, then tips her backward, until she lands on her back with him on top of her again. Her tights and panties disappear quickly, but he doesn’t touch a scrap of his own clothing, a fact Laurel quickly takes notice of. She reaches for his belt, ostensibly to level the playing field, but he pushes her hands away.

He knows what he wants, and it doesn’t involve him being naked. Not yet, at least.

He moves away, off the bed, his eyes scanning the room until finally they find what he’s looking for: one of her scarves, hanging over by her closet.

“Frank,” she sighs, frustrated. “What’re you…”

The words die on her tongue when he strides back over to the bed, takes both her wrists into his hand, and wraps the scarf around them to bind them to the headboard behind them.

Her jaw drops. “Y-you’re tying me up?”

“What’s the matter?” he teases. “You’re okay with Fifty Shades of Grey-ing me but won’t let me return the favor?”

“I… I don’t…” she swallows, fidgeting.

For once, he can’t tell if she’s actually not okay with this or just turned on, and so he pauses. “Want me to stop?”

“No,” she breathes almost immediately, a flush slowly creeping across her neck. “This is just really-“

“-hot?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t get too cocky now.”

Glancing down at the conspicuous stiffy in his jeans, Frank raises an eyebrow. “Not the best choice of words in this situation.”

Laurel laughs, as he finishes tying a knot in the scarf and moves back to look at her. “You’re horrible.”

“You know it. Now be quiet,” he deepens his voice, and feels her shiver. “I’m in charge, tonight.”

Laurel’s mouth falls shut, and a surge of arousal pounds through him – because sure, he loves it when she ties him up and orders him around; dominatrix Laurel is a huge turn-on, but this is just as good. Better, even. For a minute he just takes in the sight of her with hungry eyes: her wrists bound above her head, her milky skin almost glowing in the moonlight, her body at his mercy. It takes every ounce of self-control in him not to drop his pants and ravish her right then and there.

But no. _Slow. Control._

Laurel squirms underneath the intensity of his gaze. To say she looks self-conscious would be an understatement, and so he lowers his lips to her neck, sucking and biting the soft flesh there, hard enough to brand her with his mouth.  

“Stop,” she pants. “Don’t, Kan’ll see-“

“Good,” he growls, nipping harder and reaching down between her legs. “I want him to see. I wanna tell him every dirty, nasty fucking thing I’ve ever done to you.”

He strokes a circle across her slit with one finger, then moves it up to swirl the wetness around her clit, the sensitive bundle of nerve endings making her inhale sharply and squeeze her thighs together. He lays a trail of kisses down the valley between her breasts, pausing to massage them and take a nipple into his mouth. Then, Frank moves up, kissing her jawline, her chin, and finally stopping to hover over her mouth. She moves forward with a soft whimper, pulling against the scarf in an attempt to touch her lips to his.

But he doesn’t kiss her. He kisses the hollow of her throat, her collarbone, her hip – even all the way down to her feet and toes. Anywhere but her mouth. He thumbs her engorged clit again, in lazy, teasing circles. Her entire body twitches when he does. Before long she’s squirming, biting her lip to stop herself from begging, and so he brings his fingers, dripping with her wetness, up to her mouth.

“Taste yourself,” he orders. His voice is gentle but firm, and he feels her breathing stop entirely when she hears it.

Laurel hesitates for a second, but ultimately opens her mouth and obeys, her lips closing around the digits as her wide eyes watch him in silence. She gives a soft moan around his fingers the moment she does, and the sound makes him almost impossibly hard, so much so that he can’t even remember what it feels like _not_ to be hard. Frank draws back, resuming his tortuously slow teasing; enough to keep her going and build her desire to excruciating heights, but not enough to finish her off.

Before he’d begged for her, groveled on his knees for her touch. Now, it’s her turn.

There’s a look of understanding in her eyes that leads him to believe she knows the game he’s playing, but she’s growing wetter by the second and not getting any relief, and so finally, she gives in. "Frank..."

“Yes?”

“Frank, just…” she makes a sound of frustration. “Just – _God_.”

“I can’t help you out here if you don’t use your words, babe.”

“Just _touch me_!” she finally exclaims, yanking against the scarf so hard that he’s surprised it hasn’t come undone.

He feigns confusion. “I am.”

“Th-that’s not what I mean!”

“It’s not?” he raises an eyebrow. “Then what do you mean?”

She’s wetter than he’s ever seen, spilling down her thighs, over the curve of her ass, onto the sheets. He wants to lap up every last drop of her. He can never seem to get enough.

“I’m not gonna _say_ it-“

“Say it,” he orders, grazing his teeth across her nipple. “Or I won’t touch you. I’ll leave you like this. Maybe I won’t even untie you. I’ll let your boyfriend find you like this, tied up, spread-eagle. Good luck explaining that one to him.”

“You wouldn’t,” she hisses, and he has to give her credit; she’s stubborn as hell, teeth clenched and eyes burning.

He doesn’t answer. He just eases a finger into her before just as quickly pulling it out, and she groans – but not in a sexy way. In an annoyed, actually angry kind of way.

“Fine! _Fuck me_. There. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Frank can’t help but chuckle. “Kinda imagined you saying it differently.”

She looks more ticked off than aroused at this point. “Look, either get me off or untie me so I can do it myself.”

This isn’t exactly how he’d pictured tying Laurel up would go, but he admires her stubbornness; she isn’t just like any other girl, who would give in and beg and fake-moan for him like a porn star. When Laurel moans it’s because she wants to, because he’s _made_ her. She doesn’t exaggerate for his benefit, and tonight she’s made it crystal clear that she doesn’t play by his rules.

“What happened to me being in charge tonight?”

She rolls her eyes. “Just do something to me. Take off your pants. _Come on_.”

She’s tied up and all but helpless, and somehow she’s still in control of him. Apparently Laurel isn’t the submissive kind in the slightest, and even though he’d been trying to play the part of the dom tonight, his natural instinct is to follow her lead. To _obey_.

He didn’t used to be like this with women. He has no fucking clue what happened with Laurel.

He stands and makes off with his clothes hastily, then climbs back into the bed. In one pull the scarf binding her wrists comes undone; he doesn’t see much of a point of keeping it there now, when it’s clear she’s not having any of it.    

In one swift movement Frank lines himself up, buries his face into Laurel’s neck, and enters her as far as he can go. He can feel her stretch to accommodate his girth, deliciously tight around him, and she cries out, tossing her head back onto the pillows. In under two seconds, he’s already lost almost all presence of mind. He’s balls deep inside her and that’s all he can really think about, all he can feel, because being inside Laurel is like a fucking religious experience.

She’d been so close already that he isn’t surprised when she comes hardly a minute later with a long, shaky sigh, her legs tightening around him. Frank kisses her the instant she does, relishing in each high-pitched sound she makes against his mouth. Sometimes he thinks he could make her come for hours just to listen to the sounds she makes, over and over again, like a record stuck on repeat he’ll never get tired of.

“Jesus, Laurel,” he grunts, his tongue loosening as the pressure inside him builds. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

The sound of Laurel’s soft mewls is all it takes, and he explodes inside her, collapsing at her side after his breathing has steadied. Frank curls an arm around her to pull her close, and surprisingly, she doesn’t move away, just looks at him with a drowsy smile.

She never lets him hold her, not anymore. And they have hours tonight. _Hours_. He’ll devour every damn inch of her.

“ _Babe_?”

Another voice, coming from outside the bedroom, shatters that plan in a second’s notice. Laurel practically jumps out of her skin.

Kan.

“Shit,” she hisses, shooting to her feet and throwing her shirt over her head. “ _Shit_!”

“What the hell is he doing here?” Frank spits as quietly as he can manage, as he makes a frantic effort to toss on his own clothes.

“I don’t know, I-“

Kan’s voice interrupts again, louder this time. “Laurel? Hey, you here?”

With the approximate speed of a cheetah, Laurel snatches up the rest of Frank’s clothes and shoves him into a nearby closet, closing the door in his face before he has a chance to speak and calling out, “I-in here!”

On the other side of the door, Frank hears Kan step inside. “Hey. You okay? You look sweaty.”

“Oh, yeah,” she breathes. “Just got back from the gym.”

 _Back from the gym_. Frank admires Laurel’s quick thinking, but he honestly doesn’t know how this guy is clueless enough to believe her. She’d managed to get dressed before pushing him in the closet, but even so, the sheets are rumpled, and they smell like sex, and so does she, and he’s pretty sure his coat is lying behind the couch in the living room, where she’d thrown it earlier. He doesn’t even know where his shoes are.

“I was just gonna drop by to surprise you. I’m sorry I got so swamped in work this week.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he hears Laurel say. “Hey, I, uh, got a really nice bottle of wine. Why don’t you go open it? I’m gonna jump in the shower.”

Frank’s blood boils. Being interrupted had already royally pissed him off, but the thought of another man drinking his wine… Well, that’s the ultimate fucking insult.

“Sounds great,” Kan says.

Frank doesn’t hear anything after that for about five minutes, until suddenly Laurel tugs open the door, shoves his coat and shoes into his hands, and whispers, “Go down the fire escape.”

“The _fire escape_?” he growls, apparently a little too loudly for Laurel, because she shushes him. “You trying to get me to break my neck?”

“There’s no way you can go out the front,” she explains, panicked. “Please. He’s distracted for now.”

Frank glowers, but throws on his shoes and makes for the window regardless, opening it and stepping out.

Just as he’s about to shut it behind him, Laurel speaks up. “I’m sorry, I know I promised breakfast and everything-“

“Don’t sweat it,” he deadpans. “Enjoy the wine.”

Luckily, he’s lived in Philly long enough to know his way around a fire escape, and manages to make it down without injuring himself. Still, he feels like a stupid kid, sneaking around like this. He’s an adult. He should be above this kind of shit – but he isn’t. Not as long as it involves Laurel, who seems intent on keeping him hidden away like a dirty little secret.

That’s all he’ll ever be to her, Frank realizes as he locates his car and turns the key in the ignition. A dirty little secret. A wicked thrill. A quickie. And he’ll keep crawling back for more every time, like a dog returning to its master no matter how many times it gets kicked.  

He can’t help himself. He’s in too deep to even _want_ to help himself.


	7. Toy

“So. Like the wine?”

Laurel is standing at the coffee pot on Monday when Frank appears next to her, reaching into one of the kitchen cupboards for his mug.  

His tone is confrontational. It’s obvious that he’s mad, and probably rightfully so, after she’d kicked him out of her bed and onto the fire escape. Actually, she had come to the office today intending to apologize, but now Frank’s passive-aggressive bullshit is kind of making her not want to.

“That was some good stuff. Italian. Chianti Classico,” he continues. “2007.”

Laurel scoffs. “Would you like me to reimburse you?”

“You know I don’t give a damn about the wine, Laurel. It’s the principle of the wine.”

Finally, she meets his eyes and sets down the half-empty pot of coffee. “If we’re going to have this fight, we cannot have it here.”

“He use my groceries to make French toast too?”

“Now you’re just being petty,” she hisses. “I’m sorry Kan came over, okay? I didn’t know he was going to. I-I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“Nothing,” he shrugs, and starts to take a step back into the living room. “Like I said. Don’t sweat it.”

Surprising even herself, Laurel reaches out and touches Frank’s arm to stop him. “Wait.”

He turns. Laurel moves closer, her eyes lowered with a kind of pseudo-innocence she knows will drive him crazy. “Maybe I could… make it up to you, somehow?”

Frank mulls that over for a moment. “I think I have an idea.”

“What kind of idea?” she asks, a bit perplexed by his vagueness, because normally Frank makes no secret of it when he wants sex.

“You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” he says cryptically, a devious sparkle in his eyes.

He walks away without telling her what he means, leaving her standing in the kitchen, bewildered.

 

\--

 

On Wednesday night, Laurel gets her answer.

She’s chattering away with Kan at the stove when there’s a knock on her door, and she pulls it open without looking through the peephole, only to be confronted with a little cardboard delivery box on her doorstep. Furrowing her brow, she picks it up and reads the shipping label, which doesn’t give her any clues about its contents other than that it contains a ‘novelty item.’

She doesn’t know what the hell a ‘novelty item’ is. She’s not sure she wants to.

But her own morbid curiosity ends up winning out, and she opens it, finding a smaller, pink box within. There’s a little purple card attached, and when she reads it, her mouth drops open.

_I said I’d get you something we’d both enjoy._

- _Frank_

Laurel gulps, slowing easing up the lid of the pink box as if something might pop out at her. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s expecting, but when she opens it all the way and reveals the item inside, she just blinks.

It’s a little black object in the shape of a ‘U,’ with a slight bump on one of the ends. It’s thicker in some places, thinner in some. She’s never seen anything like it before in her life. Laurel doesn’t even have a clue what it could be, but it must be some kind of sex toy because it’s a ‘novelty item’ and ‘something we’d both enjoy,’ and _Jesus_ , he’s had a sex toy delivered to her door? She feels dirty just looking at it.

Dirty, and kind of intrigued.

She turns the pink box over, and there in large print are the words ‘remote control vibrator.’ There’s a picture demonstrating how to use it. It _fits inside her._

_Oh my God._

“Laurel?” Kan’s voice makes her jump half a foot in the air. “Who was at the door?”

Not knowing what else to do, she hides the box behind her back as she turns to face him, and tries not to look guilty. “O-oh, no one. Just a… delivery.”

“Oh, cool. What is it?”

Shit. Um… “I can’t show you. It’s part of your birthday present.”

The lie works just as intended. Kan’s face lights up, and he smiles. “My birthday’s not even for another month. You’re the best, you know that?”

Laurel is about to pass out from shock, but she makes herself smile back, and walks in the direction of the bedroom.

“I’m going to put this away. No snooping, ‘kay?”

“Yes ma’am,” he mock-salutes her. “I promise.”

_No snooping._ He damn well better not snoop, because she has no clue how she would explain _this_ thing away.

Laurel stashes the box in the bottom drawer of her dresser underneath a pile of t-shirts. She feels better once it’s out of sight, and immediately pulls out her phone to text Frank.

- _YOU HAVE NO SHAME_

It takes him barely a minute to reply. It occurs to her that he’s probably been waiting to hear from her.

- _I take it you got my gift?_

- _YOU CAN’T JUST HAVE SEX TOYS DELIVERED TO MY DOOR, FRANK_

- _I’ll be in Annalise’s class tomorrow. Wear it then_. _With a skirt_

Laurel stares at her phone for a whole sixty seconds before snapping out of it. He has to be joking.

- _I can’t wear that thing to class!!_

- _You said you wanted to make it up to me_

- _So?_

- _So make it up to me. We’ll both have fun. I promise_

- _You have the remote?_

- _It works from an app on my phone. Wear it, or else I’ll bend you over my knee and spank you. Although something tells me you might enjoy that a little too much_

The thought shouldn’t arouse her, but it does. She’s sure Frank knows it would, because her mind is so far down in the gutter that it’s probably hopeless to try and retrieve it at this point.

- _You are HORRIBLE_

- _You know it ;)_

The winky face is too much for her. She deletes the conversation and turns off her phone, making her way back out into the kitchen with Kan and trying not to think about fact that she now as a remote control vibrator in her possession. Courtesy of Frank.

She feels filthy, cheap. Also, strangely turned on – though she’s really, really trying to pretend that she isn’t.

 

\--

 

Laurel considers throwing it out in the morning. Or, at the very least, leaving it where it is.

But her eyes keep gravitating towards the bottom drawer in her dresser where she’d stowed it as she puts on her makeup and gets dressed. She chooses a grey sweater and plaid skirt – not because Frank had told her to, of course, but because she wants to. She tries not to think about the vibrator – she really does – but in a moment of weakness she opens the drawer and takes out the box.

Gnawing on her lower lip, she lifts the lid and withdraws the little toy, made of glossy black silicone. What the hell is she thinking? She can’t play a kinky sex game with Frank in class, when she’s supposed to be _learning_. She shouldn’t be doing this, not even to make it up to him. She doesn’t _owe_ him anything. It’s wrong. Inappropriate. Perverse.

And probably because Frank has polluted her once squeaky-clean mind with all sorts of dirty thoughts, she still wants to do it. And it’s her stupid, out-of-control libido that makes her pick up the instructions, read them, and slip it inside her. 

It feels weird. The outside half of the ‘U’ fits over her clit, while the other half hooks it in place inside her. It says that part is supposed to be for her G-spot, but she’s not really sure if she even _has_ a G-spot. It’s not like she’s ever… looked.

This is one huge disaster waiting to happen, she thinks, as she grabs her purse and heads out to her car.  

It feels weird. Really weird, just walking around _knowing_ that there’s something inside her. It’s not uncomfortable, and her panties hold it in place pretty well, but still. She doesn’t know why she let him talk her into this. As she takes her seat in the lecture hall, she thinks to herself that this is probably the kinkiest – and dumbest – thing she’s ever done.

Laurel rests her chin on her hand and chews on the end of her pen, her cheeks burning with the knowledge of what she’s doing. She can’t look anyone in the eyes, for fear they might somehow _know_. She fixes her eyes on the board instead, crossing her legs tightly and feeling the vibe jostle inside her.

And suddenly there he is, in the front of the room next to Annalise and Bonnie, buff and broad-shouldered, with that fucking beard that drives her crazy and his mischievous blue eyes. He’s done that thing he always does where he’s taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves to expose his forearms, and she can’t stand it.

Frank is staring back at her with a knowing look on his face. He reaches into his pocket for his phone, and a few seconds later, her phone buzzes with a new text.

- _Wearing it?_

Laurel swallows, deciding to play coy.

- _Maybe, maybe not_

Abruptly, she feels a light buzzing between her legs, directly on her clit. She jumps, and promptly squeezes her thighs together. It switches off shortly after, but leaves her more than a little flustered.

When she looks down at Frank again, he’s smirking.

- _Good girl_

She bites her lip as Annalise calls the class to order, and the students rush to their seats, a hush falling over the crowd.

- _No funny business, okay?_

- _Can’t make any promises ;)_

- _Stop using that face_

- _Sure thing ;) ;)_

Rolling her eyes, Laurel sets her phone down on the foldable tray in front of her that functions as a desk, and tries to pay attention to what Annalise is saying. She’s not really sure why Frank and Bonnie are even here; something about getting fresh pairs of eyes for their case, or something. She doesn’t know, or particularly care.

What she does care about, however, is that he’s turned the vibe on again.

Thankfully it’s quiet enough to be mistaken for the buzzing of a phone – which, with the hundred other students here, is a pretty common noise to hear. Her eyes fly to the front of the room again, and there’s Frank again, watching her with devious eyes and slipping his phone back into his pocket. The vibrations spike in intensity, and she almost yelps, sitting up straighter in her seat.

There’s another vibration a minute or so later, this time from her phone. He still hasn’t turned off the one in between her legs, and if she gets any wetter she’s probably going to soak through her panties, which cannot happen, because she needs those for her next two classes – and for this little thing called _common decency._

He’s seriously got to stop ruining her underwear.

Pushing the thought away, Laurel unlocks her phone, and reads the new message with wide eyes.

- _I can still taste you_

Oh, God. That isn’t fair. Now he’s going to sext her dirty things to rile her up even more?

Well, it’s not going to work. She has very minimal willpower when it comes to Frank, but it’s not like she doesn’t have any whatsoever.

- _Turn it off. And stop texting me_

Shocking enough, he obliges, and she is finally able to relax, although she can practically feel the blush sizzling her cheeks. Even now that he’s turned it off, she can’t stop thinking about it. How she has it _inside_ of her, in the middle of class, with Annalise and Bonnie and a hundred other people. She’s not an exhibitionist. She shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as she is.

A few minutes pass. Then, her phone buzzes again, and so does the vibrator.

- _I could eat you out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner_

Frank catches her gaze and holds on fast. Just the thought alone of his tongue lapping her up is enough to make her squirm and clench her thighs tighter. The vibrations are faster, now; inside and outside and all over the place, and she’s not going to be able make it through class like this. No way.

- _Turn it off!!!_

- _I’d rather you come. Right now. In front of everyone_

- _TURN IT OFF, FRANK_

Frank doesn’t. He’s loving this; she can see it in his eyes. And the vibrations feel really good, but they’re not enough to make her come, so he’s out of luck there. It’s a small victory for her, at least.

But then Frank turns it up, and changes up the pattern because apparently that’s a thing he can do and – nevermind. _Now_ it’s enough to make her come.

He turns it off before she can, however, just as Annalise starts dividing them into groups to do some work on some project. Laurel doesn’t have any idea what it is. She hasn’t been able to focus on anything all class except the vibrator buried inside her, humming away relentlessly. She and Wes are in the same group, and of course he smiles and settles himself into the seat next to her. Normally she’d be fine with that, but now… God, she cannot chat with him _now_.

“So,” he starts. “I was thinking we argue battered wife syndrome.”

He’s turned the vibrator on again. Her forehead is shiny with sweat. Her nipples are rock hard beneath her sweater.

“Uh, yeah,” she manages to say. “Sounds great.”

“Hey, you okay?” Wes leans over, concerned. “Your cheeks are really red.”

_Oh, sure. I’m fine. I just have a remote control vibrator inside me. You know. A typical Thursday morning._

“I’m fine,” she chokes out, pressing her thighs together, desperate for some kind of friction. She can practically feel Frank’s eyes burning into her. “It’s just kind of… hot in here.”

Her phone goes off again. For some reason, she can’t _not_ check it.

- _You’re wet for me. You want me inside you_

Great. Now all she can think about now is how Frank is hung like a horse. That only makes her fidget more.

- _You’re dead you’re so DEAD_

- _Well if you kill me, my dick will be of no use to you, so you might wanna rethink that one_

- _Fuck you_

- _I know you’d like to_

- _I’ll go to the bathroom. I’ll take this thing out_

- _No you won’t. Because if you do, I’ll punish you_

The dirty, filthy, depraved part of Laurel’s mind hopes that punishment will involve spanking. She shakes her head, pushing the mental image away.

- _And how will you do that??_

- _I won’t make you come. For a week_

- _That will punish YOU too_

- _Believe it or not, I can take care of myself. You can’t. You need me_

- _My hands_

- _My mouth_

- _My cock_

The chain of messages appear in quick succession. She can feel her clit throb as she reads each one. She hates it, but it’s true. She needs him. He’s like a drug, like a damn aphrodisiac. His hands on her breasts. His mouth between her thighs. His cock buried inside her. She can picture it all so clearly. She can’t stop thinking about it.

Laurel doesn’t realize that they’re going around the room presenting their ideas for the defense until Annalise’s and everyone else’s eyes fall on her, pulling her out of her dirty little daydream. She panics initially, because she doesn’t even know what their case is, but luckily Wes clears his throat and passes his notebook into her hands.

She’d be really grateful if she weren’t so hot and bothered.

“Uh, yes,” she clears her throat and stands on shaky legs. Her voice shakes, and when her eyes meet Frank’s, she gulps audibly. “In this case we thought it would be best to argue… b-battered wife syndrome. If we could… procure the testimony of one of Mrs. William’s neighbors, we could… we could… argue an abuse defense and-”

“Congratulations, Miss Castillo,” Annalise deadpans. “You’ve successfully repeated everything Mr. Gibbins just told us.”

A wave of snickers echoes throughout the room. Laurel can’t even bring herself to care. She’s going to come, right here, right in front of everyone, if she doesn’t leave somehow. It’ll be humiliating. She won’t be able to stop herself. Everyone will _know._

Annalise notices her apparent distress, and frowns. “Are you feeling all right, Miss Castillo?”

“No, I…” Laurel breathes. Frank turns the vibe up to what must be as high as it will go, and her knees start to wobble. She actually whimpers out loud. “I-I’m not feeling… well. I have to…”

She doesn’t even bother to finish her sentence; she just books it, up the stairs and out the doors. She can feel her sticky wetness on the insides of her thighs, and her whole body is thrumming with the threat of her orgasm. She doesn’t know what to do. The nearest bathroom is all the way across the building, and there’s no way in hell she’ll make it in time, and she can’t just take the vibe out right here in the hallway.

Before she has the time to formulate a plan, she feels a pair of strong hands gripping her from behind, pulling her over to a nearby vacant classroom.

“Frank!” she exclaims, as he opens the door and tugs her inside. “ _Turn it off_!”

Frank ignores her. He doesn’t kiss her. He doesn’t even speak. Instead, he slams the door behind them, all but drags her over to the desk in the front of the room, and bends her over it, tugging down her panties and pushing up her skirt to leave her wide open for him. A hard slap on her ass makes her yelp, a surge of even more potent arousal overtaking her as the sting spreads across her tender skin.

“Turn it off,” she begs, gripping the desk until her knuckles go pale. “Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off.”

Again, he doesn’t answer. She hears the rustling of a belt and the unzipping of a zipper, and then Frank grabs her hair in his hands and yanks it back – hard. He’s never manhandled her like this before. He’s so strong that he could snap her in half if he wanted to, and that shouldn’t turn her on, but it does. _Christ_ it does.

“Jesus, Laurel,” he grinds out, and then suddenly he’s inside her along with the vibe, hard and hot and _huge_.

Laurel lets out a choked half-sob of pleasure. It’s all too much at once: the vibrations inside her, the vicious stimulation of her clit, _him_. She crumbles to bits just like that, making no effort to hold in her moans. They echo in the empty classroom like an erotic aria, building to a crescendo along with Frank’s occasional grunts and growls.

She’s pretty sure she blacks out from the force of her orgasm, and when she comes to, she isn’t even sure how many times she’s climaxed. Twice, at least, but she thinks three times is probably more than likely. All she knows for sure is that Frank is sliding himself and the vibe out of her, and turning her around to face him, even though she can barely sit upright. Her limbs feel like jelly, her eyelids drooping.  

“Holy shit,” Frank says, just as breathless and sweaty as she is. “ _Fuck_ , that was good.”

Laurel can’t even find her voice. She’s breathing so hard she’s almost dizzy, and when she doesn’t answer, his eyes fill with worry.

Gently, he reaches out to tuck a piece of sweaty hair behind her ear. “Hey. You okay, Laurel?”

“Yeah,” she finally manages. “Yeah, you just kind of… f-fucked me senseless.”

He chuckles. “That’s what I like to hear.”

The events of the past hour or so flood back into her mind, and when she remembers her anger, Laurel smacks him hard on the chest. “I can’t believe you did that to me, in front of everyone. You’re an… an _asshole_!”

“Yeah, well, you suck at being discreet. You were practically grinding against your desk.”

Dazed, Laurel shakes her head. “Whatever. We are never using that thing again.”

“You really wanna say that? After it helped you come your brains out?”

“Fine,” she relents. “We’re never using it again _in public_.”

“Too bad,” Frank laments. “I could think of several other good places. The office. Court.”

“You’re despicable. Never,” Laurel laughs, sliding her panties back up, smoothing down her skirt, and leaning in to peck him on the lips. “Never ever.”


	8. Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who's still along for the ride, I hope you're enjoying! Writing this is helping me survive the hiatus, so hopefully it does the same for you <3

In Frank’s world, everything is peachy.

He has Laurel, which if he’s being perfectly honest is all he really needs. He can kiss her and touch her, and take her home with him almost every night of the week. She doesn’t let him spend the night, or cook her breakfast, or do any of the other romantic things he wants to do, and yeah, sometimes that really fucking sucks. It fucking sucks a lot, actually, but he’s trying to focus on the positives here.

Everything is peachy, and then, one morning as he’s walking across the street to the office, he spots Laurel and Kan standing on the sidewalk, sucking face.

It’s not like he’s stupid enough to believe that Laurel doesn’t let Kan kiss her, that her lips are reserved exclusively for him. But Kan has one hand tangled in her hair, and he’s pressing her up against the gate, and Laurel looks like she’s really into it – and being smacked in the face with the reality that Laurel isn’t his girl pisses him off. Big time.

He knows he probably has no right to be jealous. Theirs isn’t an exclusive relationship; it never has been. There’s no commitment, no mandate of fidelity, but he wants her, so much he can’t even really put it into words. And she wants him too, sure. For sex. For a quick fuck behind closed doors.

Not for anything real. Just for someone to take to bed with her.

He stalks past them with a scowl, and the moment she notices him, Laurel pulls away, murmuring a hasty goodbye to Kan. She trails behind him silently up the porch steps, and he stops at the front door to hold it open for her.

When he doesn’t say anything, just looks at her, she fidgets awkwardly. “Frank, I-“

“This is a place of work,” is all he says. “You wanna mack on your little boyfriend, find somewhere else to do it, Miss Castillo.”

He’s never called her that before – well, he has, but only to wind her up during sex. He’s never actually put that cold, professional barrier between them, and the instant the words leave his mouth, Laurel’s face falls. Frank turns without another word, disappearing into the house and letting the door shut in her face.

He spends the rest of the day in a state of not-so-mild irritation, snapping at the kids a bit more often than he usually does and clenching his jaw until it gives him a headache. Laurel meets him in his car after work like always, though they don’t exchange anything other than a few terse words with each other during the ride to his place. He’s still angry, and Laurel, sensing his shitty mood, avoids his eyes for the most part.

Finally, as they step inside his apartment and he continues to ignore her, she snaps.

“What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you talk to me?”

Frank doesn’t answer; he only turns his back to her and hangs up his coat. She scoffs.

“Are you giving me the cold shoulder? What, because of Kan this morning?”

“What do you think?” he finally asks, turning to meet her eyes. “You think it doesn’t kill me to see him with you like that, shoving his damn tongue down your throat?”

“You’re being ridiculous. You know I’m with him. It’s not like it’s anything new.”

“Oh, believe me. I know it’s not anything new.”

Color rises to her cheeks. “Why even have me come home with you then? I didn’t… I didn’t come here to _fight_.”

“’Course you didn’t. You came here to _fuck_ ,” he almost spits the word.

“Okay. Fine,” she bites out. “I came here to fuck. So are we going to keep arguing or are we-”

Before Laurel can finish her sentence, he grabs her, pulls her flush against him, and all but attacks her lips with his. She tenses initially, but eventually relaxes into the kiss, her arms coiling themselves around his back. He slides his hands into the sleeves of her coat and pushes it off, letting it fall into a heap on the floor as he walks them backwards into his bedroom.

As they cross the threshold, a primal, almost animalistic urge rises within him. To fuck her. To make her his. To make her come, harder than she ever has and ever will again, so hard she can’t even remember Kan’s name. His heart thudding loudly in his ears like a drum, he reaches for her chiffon blouse just as they reach the end of the bed and tugs it apart roughly. The buttons pop and break. Some of the fabric even tears, and she pulls away in surprise, her lips glistening with saliva in the moonlight.

“Frank! You can’t-”

He doesn’t pay any attention to her. He just kisses her again, hard and deep, hard enough that the collision of tongue and teeth draws blood, and lowers her onto the bed. He makes off with her bra and tights and panties like a maniac, and before he knows it his clothes are gone as well, their sweat-sticky skin making contact at last. Her breasts brush against his bare chest, and he reaches down to pinch a nipple in between his fingers, eliciting a surprised squeal from Laurel. His head is spinning, his blood pumping hot in his veins. They’ve never moved this fast before, this roughly; it almost feels like a blur, but he has no desire to slow down, and judging by the way Laurel is panting beneath him, she doesn’t either.

He buries his face in her neck, sucking on her skin, kissing her, _branding_ her. Right then and there he’d like nothing more to take her in front of everyone, in front of Kan, so the clueless son of a bitch could hear how he makes her scream and moan and come harder than he ever will. Frank wants him to know. He wants the whole goddamn _world_ to know.

“You’re mine,” he growls into her throat, as her fingers bury themselves in his slick hair. “You’re _mine_ , Laurel.”

All at once, Laurel tenses underneath him. He notices, and pulls back, only to find her looking at him with an expression on her face that he can’t quite read.

There’s a pause, and then-

“I’m not _yours_.”

Frank furrows his brow, caught off guard, and before he can stop her, Laurel has flipped their positons, straddled him, and sunk down on his cock, taking all of him inside her in one swift motion. A groan rips itself from his throat at the feeling of her walls around him, tight and like fucking silk, but she doesn’t make a sound. She doesn’t even tremble.

“I am not _yours_ ,” she repeats.

Frank growls, gripping her hips tightly, his dull fingernails digging into her skin. He wants nothing more than to reverse their positions, to fuck her through the mattress, but the way Laurel’s eyes burn freezes him in place as she starts to ride him, hard and fast, her breasts bouncing up and down. He’s never seen her so furious, her nostrils flared and her jaw clenched.

He’s never seen her like this, and he can’t fight; he doesn’t even want to. All he can do is watch in awe, mesmerized and fuming.

“I don’t belong to you,” Laurel pants. “I’m not some object you _own_. I’ll screw Kan if I want to – oh _God_. I’ll screw you if I want to. But I’m. Not. _Yours._ ”

She punctuates each word by delving down roughly against him, one hand braced on his chest to steady herself. He glances down at where they’re joined, his cock disappearing inside her again and again with every rolling movement of her hips, and he comes before he can remember to try to hold out, exploding inside her with a choked groan. He’s too furious and fascinated to even remember to be embarrassed, and it occurs to him after a moment that this is probably what she wanted: to make him come first, to make him give in.

Well, it’d worked. It always does, with Laurel.

Much to his surprise, she dismounts him almost immediately after he finishes, standing beside the bed on shaky legs. She wipes her mouth off with the heel of her hand, and struggles to catch her breath as he stares at her, bewildered. She didn’t come, and he knows it, but there’s a fiery look in her eyes that leads him to believe that she doesn’t _want_ to.

Laurel reaches down to pick up her discarded shirt on the floor, and Frank sits up, his head still spinning from the force of his orgasm.

“What?” he pants. “Don’t want me to get you off?”

She only glares at him as she clasps her bra behind her back. “I can take care of myself.”

She makes for the door even before putting her underwear or blouse on, and _no_. _Hell no_. He’s not sitting back and letting her leave like this.

Every woman who sets foot in his apartment orgasms at least once. That’s his policy.

Before she can take even three steps away from the bed, he shoots to his feet and grabs her roughly by the arm, ignoring her protests and throwing her back down onto the mattress. He grabs her wrists and pins them both above her head with one strong hand, leaving her unable to escape.

“I don’t need you!” she asserts again, thrashing about for a moment before finally going still. “I can get myself off perfectly fine.”

“Sure. You could try,” Frank replies easily. “Leave and go home and touch yourself. But it wouldn’t help, because you’d be thinking about me. What I could be doing to you instead. How I could be fucking you, and believe me, you wouldn’t have to try to come that way.”

“How do you know I would be thinking about you?” Laurel shoots back, unwilling to back down and admit defeat, even though it’s clear her willpower is evaporating. He reaches down and strokes two fingers against her clit, and she shudders. “I-I could be thinking about Kan.”

He chuckles, though it’s not a laid-back, amused sound like it usually is. It’s sardonic, mocking. “You can’t tell me he makes you come as hard as I do.”

“Kan makes me come as hard as you do,” she parrots the words back at him sharply. “H-harder.”

There’s a challenge in her eyes, and he accepts it. Of course he does.

“Well,” Frank raises an eyebrow and knifes a hand between her thighs, thrusting three fingers into her as far as they will go. “We’ll see about that.”

He fucks her with his fingers rapidly – violently, almost. Laurel’s mouth drops open in a throaty moan, her hips bucking wildly into his hand. He curls his fingers into a kind of come-hither gesture, and it takes him a few tries, but eventually he finds it: that deliciously sensitive spot a few inches inside her he knows will make her scream like an animal. When he can draw them out of her, Laurel’s screams are the most rewarding sound in the world. When she’s in his bed, she isn’t the quiet, reserved little Wallflower anymore. She’s Laurel, the screamer, the moaner, a girl only _he_ sees. 

And she’ll scream tonight. He’ll make damn sure of that.

Frank finds that spot inside her and rubs it viciously, pulling back slightly to watch the look on her face. She’s half-moaning, half-sobbing, her eyes squeezed shut and her features screwed up in ecstasy. She has gone almost completely boneless with lust. He thinks he can almost see tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. The sight would be enough to get him hard again instantly, if he didn’t need a cooldown period.

“F-faster,” Laurel pleads feverishly. He raises his eyebrows in surprise, but obliges, even though if he goes much faster he’s pretty sure his hand will start to cramp up. “Don’t stop don’t stop _don’t stop_!”

Laurel is so wet that he can actually hear her suctioning around his fingers every time he drives them in. She is making sounds that he’s never heard before, because sure, she’s loud sometimes, but she’s never been _this_ loud, howling and outright sobbing. She’s leaving orbit, losing herself in the pleasure, and it’s the most beautiful thing Frank has ever seen.

“You – I – I feel,” she stumbles over her words. “I-I feel like – I’m gonna… Frank, _oh_ – I-“

Laurel comes with a high-pitched shriek, the words dying on her tongue. Her entire body goes rigid for a second, and then, out of nowhere, he feels a rush of fluid coat his fingers. It soaks her thighs, the entirety of his hand, and when he looks down toward the end of the bed, it looks like a geyser has erupted all over his sheets.

And in the middle of it all is Laurel, her lips parted in the shape of an ‘O’ and her thighs quivering.

Holy fuck.  

“Holy fuck,” Frank echoes the sentiment out loud, because… well, _holy fuck_.

Laurel, who is still coming down from cloud nine, props herself up on her elbows, even though she’s trembling so much that it takes her a minute. She takes one look at the stunned expression on his face and goes red immediately, her eyes shiny with tears.

“O-oh my God… What-what’d I…?”

“Damn babe,” he remarks, helping her upright. “You shoulda told me you were a squirter.”

Laurel brings a shaky hand up to cover her mouth. “I-I’m not… I n-never… I didn’t even know I _could_ -”

She won't look at him. She looks humiliated, almost like she might cry, and so he cups her cheek, tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear and urging her to meet his eyes.

“Hey,” he softens his voice. “Don’t be embarrassed. That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She visibly relaxes. “Really?”

“Hell yeah. Knowing I make you feel so good…” he drifts off, kissing her jawline with a low grunt of satisfaction. “You can’t tell me he’s ever made you do that.”

“Of course not,” she gives a breathy laugh. “But… h-how? _How_ did you make me do that? I didn’t know that was… possible.”

“A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

Laurel smiles. “A magician?”

“You have to admit, that was pretty magical. Like Moses parting the Red Sea.”

He reaches down to cup her between the legs for emphasis. Laurel throws her head back and laughs. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

“Me either.”

Gently, he pulls her into his lap. They kiss like that for a minute, slow and sleepy, until she breaks away, sighing happily. “That was amazing. _You’re_ amazing.”

Hearing her say those words makes Frank’s heart beat faster, makes him want to pull her closer and tell her that he needs her – not just this part of her she lets him have during the night, but _all_ of her.

Instead, he just shrugs and puts his cockiness on autopilot. “Tell me something I don’t know. Make me a promise, though.”

“What?”

“Give me a heads up the next time you think there’ll be waterworks,” he quips. “Y’know. Just so I can be prepared.”

Laurel smacks him on the chest, blushing furiously. “Don’t call it that!”

Frank just chuckles, and draws her into his arms again. 


	9. Jealous

For the first time in a long time, Laurel is happy.

She has Kan, who has everything she could ever want in a boyfriend. She has Frank, who has everything she could ever want in a… not-boyfriend.

Kan lives in blissful ignorance, cooking her dinner, holding her at night, being the all-around amazing guy that he is. But Frank… she can sense his increased exasperation with her, every time she walks out on him, every time she leaves in the middle of the night. He pretends like it doesn’t bother him, but he’s easier to read than he knows, and Laurel can see right through him.

Then, one night, his frustration finally comes to a head.

It’s late Saturday night, and she doesn’t normally come over on Saturdays, but she’d been feeling guilty, having walked out after really passionate, really _good_ sex the night before. He’d been pissed – more pissed than he usually gets, and they had parted on bad terms. Laurel even brings a bottle of wine to make it up to him, and smiles brightly at Frank when he opens the door.

“Hey,” she greets as she steps inside. “So, I brought us some wine. I know it’s probably not as nice as what you brought me before, but-”

“Sounds great,” he interrupts, giving a half-assed attempt at a smile.

Immediately, Laurel can tell something is kind of off about him tonight: he seems tense, and his eyes don’t look like they normally do when he sees her, but she chooses not to pry.

Instead, she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him and breathes, “Can we open it… later?”

Frank doesn’t answer. He just kisses her harder, tangling a hand into her hair, and guides them into the bedroom. They fall down onto the mattress with Laurel on top, and her hands go for his crew neck sweater, pulling it over his head and leaning in to kiss his neck.

The instant she does, Laurel freezes.

She smells perfume on him; cheap vanilla perfume that is nothing like any she owns. She stops and looks closer, and there’s a bite mark on his neck – which she most definitely did not leave, because she doesn’t do that kind of thing. There are crescent-shaped fingernail marks on his chest and shoulders, too, and they look recent. Very recent. 

Bewildered, Laurel pulls away to look at him, and she finds Frank staring back at her, his eyes cold, his expression stoic. There isn’t a hint of confusion on his face as to why she’s stopped. He knows what he’s done, just as well as she does.

And that’s when Laurel realizes that he _wants_  her to know.

“I don’t…” she shakes her head, rising from the bed and backing away. “I don’t understand. You…”

Frank stands as well, and only raises his eyebrows, not offering any explanation, any excuse. All the air goes out of her lungs at once.

“Y-you slept with someone else?” Laurel finally manages to choke out.

He shrugs. “Figured if I’m just your side piece, there’s no reason I can’t be getting a little action on the side too.”

“So that’s why you did it?” She can feel tears threatening to burn her eyes, but she blinks them away. “To prove a point? To… to _hurt_ me?”

“Well,” he deadpans. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t aware this was a monogamous relationship.”

A moment of deafening silence passes between them. He’s still just looking at her, unrepentant, like she isn’t even there, like he can see right through her. She’s surprised by how much it hurts.

Laurel raises her chin, meeting his eyes and keeping her voice low, measured. “What was her name?”

That seems to catch Frank off guard. “I sleep with another girl and you wanna know her name?”

“That’s why you did this, isn’t it? To make me jealous? Fine. Go ahead. Throw it in my face. W-what’d she look like?”

“Her name was Sarah,” he tells her, after a moment of hesitation. “She was tall. Blonde. Hot. Great in bed. We had fun. She had a boyfriend, but hell, it’s not like I haven’t been someone’s dirty little secret before.”

 _Tall. Blonde. Hot._ All that Laurel isn’t. He’d done that on purpose, too. Picked a blonde bombshell to prove that he can get prettier, hotter girls than her, and that hurts, too. It hurts like a fucking kick in the stomach.

She wonders briefly if this is how Frank had felt, all those times she would mention Kan, all those times he would see them together, kissing, making plans, everything she would never do with him. Just the idea of Frank with another woman drives her insane with jealousy. Had it been this bad for him?

But _no_. She’s not going to try to rationalize this for him. He did this out of spite, to hurt her, to prove some kind of twisted point, and she feels anger start to build inside her.  

“How could you do that to me?” she blurts out, and it’s only after the words have left her mouth that she realizes how stupid they sound.

“You gotta be kidding,” he spits. “This isn’t a fucking three-way street, Laurel. You don’t get to run home to your boyfriend every night after screwing me and then tell me that _I_ have to be faithful here. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

“Fine, you don’t have to be _faithful_ to me,” Laurel raises her voice. “But I’ve never thrown Kan in your face. I-I’m not with him just to hurt you!”

“You think it doesn’t hurt me to know that he kisses you? That he fucks you in the same bed I do? That he stays the night and cooks your breakfast? Because it does.”

“I don’t know what you want. I can’t be with you, not like I’m with Kan-“

Frank takes a step towards her, his eyes softening. “Leave him for me. Say the word, and I’ll never even _look_ at another girl. Say the word, and I’m yours. I’m in this for more than just sex.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Laurel bites. “Because I’m not.”

There’s another pause as her words sink in. She can see clearly that they wound him, but the look gives way to anger quickly.

“Then what do you want from me, huh?” he demands. “What do you want me to be, Laurel? Your side piece? Your fucking _sex slave_? The guy who waits at your beck and call to get you off when you need it?”

“That’s not-” she exhales sharply. “I just want _you_!”

Frank grabs her arm, pulling her close. “Then be _with_ me if you want me so much. What the hell are you so afraid of?”

“What Kan and I have…” she stops to lick her lips. “It’s special. And he’s a really good guy. The kind of guy I could have a future with. The kind I could marry.”

Bonnie’s words come to her all of a sudden. _And let’s be honest here, it’s not Frank a rich girl like you ends up with, is it?_ She had been right, though Laurel had been caught up in the thrill of Frank and not willing to admit it then. She had been right, because it’s probably _not_ Frank she’ll end up with, and if she ends it with Kan and things with Frank don’t work out – which, realistically, is more than likely – then she would have given up something that could’ve been good. Really good. Really _safe_.

There’s a tiny, niggling voice in the back of her head that tells her to take the chance. Laurel ignores it, and lowers her eyes.

“And I love him,” Laurel finally says. “A-and I don’t love you, and I never will – and if you’re trying to make me choose, if that’s what you _want_ , then I choose him. This is just… This is just sex to me.”

Frank clenches his jaw. His eyes go from ice to steel: cold, hard, impenetrable steel.

“Well, then as long as we’re being honest here, how’s about this?” he growls, staring her square in the eyes. “I only picked you to get in your pants. I knew you wouldn’t be an easy lay, and I wanted to fuck you and get you out of my system. And now I wish I never had.”

And there it is. The final nail on the coffin: reducing her value to her body, like the misogynistic ass she’d called him the first time they’d met. From the start that had been why everyone had assumed she was picked, to be _Frank’s Girl_ , and there’s nothing he could have said that would’ve hurt worse.

He might as well have slapped her. Laurel’s lower lip trembles. Her eyes well up with hot tears. She wants to sob, but there’s no way in hell she’ll do that in front of him.

The moment he sees her face start to crumple, Frank’s shoulders droop, and all the anger seems to flood out of him at once. He reaches out to touch her arm. “Laurel-”

“Don’t touch me,” she hisses, backing away.

“Just-”

“Fuck you,” Laurel bites out, her voice wobbling pathetically. “ _Fuck_ you.”

She turns, and grabs her coat and purse, and storms out without another word. He doesn’t try to stop her. He doesn’t call after her, because he knows as well as she does that there’s nothing else to say. As Laurel locks herself in her car and finally lets the tears fall, she realizes that she should’ve known this was coming from the start. Everything between them had always been so passionate and physical and _raw_ that she should’ve known they would fizzle out sooner or later.

From day one there had been an expiration date. She should’ve known that. How had she been so stupid?

She calls Kan, makes up some lie about something happening at work as the excuse for her tears. He comes over, and lies down with her, and whispers comforting words in her ear, and she tells him she loves him, but the words feel empty. She says them just to say them, and not because they really mean anything. Kan is good, and he makes the pain go away for a little while, like a Band-Aid.

But when she closes her eyes, it isn’t his face she sees. It isn’t his arms she wants around her. It never is.

 

\--

 

They avoid each other at work.

If she has an idea, she goes to Bonnie or Annalise with it. If he needs help doing something for a case, he goes to any one of the team except her. It hurts every day to see him, to remember what he’d said to her, what she’d said to him. _I wanted to fuck you and get you out of my system. And now I wish I never had. I don’t love you and I never will. This is just sex to me._

But if it had just been sex, if it didn’t really matter… well, Laurel’s pretty sure that it wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad as it does now. They’d both said things they didn’t mean. They’d both been cruel to each other. He’d known exactly how to hurt her, and she’d known exactly how to hurt him.

It’s like they’re meant to be in the most dysfunctional way possible.

They go on like that for two weeks, avoiding each other and only speaking when absolutely necessary. Then, one afternoon after class, Laurel steps outside to find a torrential downpour falling from the sky, and she sighs. She hadn’t brought an umbrella, and her car is in the shop after refusing to start yesterday, which means she’ll be walking all the way across campus to the office in the pouring rain.

Laurel takes a deep breath and decides to suck it up. The freezing cold rain soaks through her turtleneck in a matter of seconds, and strands of damp hair cling uncomfortably to her cheeks. She doesn’t even have a textbook to cover her head with, so her makeup is probably already past the point of repair.

She only gets about fifty feet down the sidewalk before she notices a grey car pull over to the curb next to her and stop. The window rolls down, and – just her luck – it’s Frank behind the wheel, looking out at her.

Of course it is. Why would the forces of the universe want to improve her day in any way?

“Laurel?” he calls out. She meets his eyes briefly, before just as quickly looking away. “Get in. I’ll give you a ride.”

Laurel ignores him. She keeps walking, and so he puts the car back into gear and drives alongside her.

“I don’t need a ride,” she finally yells over the noise of the storm. “I can walk.”

He glares at her. “Just get in the damn car, Laurel. It’s pouring.”

Laurel thinks about simply walking away, but after a moment of consideration, she reluctantly plods over, pulls open the car door, and settles herself down into the passenger seat, grateful to be out of the rain – but not grateful at all to have been rescued by _him_. When Frank doesn’t do anything for what feels like the longest moment in the world, she finally glances at him out of her peripheral vision, and finds him with that same sad-eyed look on his face he’d had that night, when he’d urged her to dump Kan, to say the word and let him be hers.

The memory stings. It makes her heart feel like a thousand-pound weight inside her.

“I-” he starts to say, but she cuts him off.

“Just drive. Please.”

“So that’s it? You’re not even gonna talk to me?”

She keeps her eyes fixed ahead, as raindrops pour down his windshield and blur the world around them. “I think we said all we needed to say that night, don’t you?”

“I didn’t mean what I said,” he lowers his voice. “You know I didn’t mean it.”

She shrugs. “You just confirmed what everyone else thought at the start. That the only reason I was there was to smile pretty and spread my legs for you. Which was what I did, so. They weren’t wrong.”

“I was angry. You know you’re so much more than that, Laurel. To the team, and to me.”

She doesn’t want to engage, but finds that she can’t help herself. “That doesn’t change the fact that you slept with someone else. And you did it to hurt me.”

“I know, I-”

“Well, you got what you wanted. You hurt me. And – no, you know what?” she sighs, and reaches down to unbuckle her seatbelt. “I should just go. I’ll walk.”

He reaches out to catch her wrist. “Hey. Hear me out.”

His touch, coupled with the tender look in his eyes, stills her at once. It makes her whole body hum with electricity, and she frowns at the unwelcome feeling, tugging her wrist away.

“That’s not fair. Y-you don’t get to… control me like this-”

“I control you? You’ve had me by the balls since day one, Laurel. I’d do anything for you.”

“Stop saying that,” Laurel snaps, her voice breaking. “Stop saying you’d do anything for me like you think it’ll magically _fix_ everything. It won’t.”

“I know that. Just wait. Listen to me.”                

Laurel wavers, then finally releases the door handle and sinks back into the seat. “Fine. You have one minute.”

“I thought of you. The whole time I was with her,” he says, catching her gaze and holding on fast. She frowns, and he rushes to clarify. “That’s not what I – Look, I didn’t even enjoy it, because you were all I could think about. That’s what I’m trying to say. And when I said I wished I’d never picked you it’s because I can’t get you out of my head. It fucking kills me to know I hurt you. I’m sorry. I screwed up. I just…” he trails off, clenching his jaw. “I need you.”

 _I need you_. Laurel wants desperately to stay angry at him, to refuse to forgive him. After what he’d done to her, what he’d said to her, she would be perfectly justified in never speaking to him again, and maybe that’s precisely what she would be better off doing. But the thought of banishing Frank from her life, forever… It hurts way more than anything he’d said or done to her.

“And if you still wanna go, I’m not gonna stop you,” Frank continues, drawing out of her thoughts. “But I screwed things up before, and I don’t want you to shut me out like that again. I don’t want this to be the end.”

 _I need you_. _I don’t want this to be the end._ The words break her. Something inside her gives.

Before she can realize what she’s doing, she is clambering into his lap and kissing him, accidentally honking the car horn in the process. When she pulls away, she finds that she’s shaking, partly from the cold, but mostly because she feels so much for him in that instant she can barely think. She’s still furious. She’s still hurt. But she wants him so badly she can’t help herself. She has some kind of inherent, Pavlovian response to his touch, his scent – God, really just _him._

“I-I didn’t mean it either. What I said,” she murmurs against his lips. “About this just being sex. But I can’t… I can’t leave Kan-”

“Then don’t. I don’t care.”

She frowns. “But I thought-”

“If this is how it’s gotta be, fine,” Frank rasps. “If this is all of you you’re ever gonna let me have, fine. But I can’t not have any of you at all. It’s fucking torture.”

She captures his lips again and gives a frantic sound of assent against his mouth. After a moment, he nudges her off and puts the car into drive, guiding the car down the street at a speed that is definitely far from legal. She doesn’t know where they’re going; she doesn’t care enough to ask, as long as it’s somewhere they can be alone. Even as he drives, she can’t keep her hands off him. They wander across the firmness of his chest, his arms, as she kisses greedily at his neck.

All at once, Laurel feels the car come to a halt, and when she looks out the window, she finds that they’re in front of the office.

Laurel shoots him a look of confusion. “What-”

Frank doesn’t answer. He just steps out without a word, and she follows suit. He circles around the car, meets her where she stands by the passenger side, and kisses her again, without even looking around to see if anyone is nearby. It’s still raining, and now they’re both sopping wet, but she can’t bring herself to care. He’s all she can see, all she can feel. Somehow, they manage to make it up the porch stairs and into the house, even though they can hardly tear themselves away from each other.

It’s still early, and no one else is around, not even Annalise. They only make it a few steps inside before collapsing onto the bottom of the stairs, tongues and teeth and hands roaming and groping wildly.

“I missed you,” he growls between kisses, fumbling with his sodden coat until it falls off. “I missed you so fucking much.”

“Don’t do something like that again,” she breathes. “Ever.”

“No other girls. None. I promise.”

He tugs her to her feet and up the stairs, pressing her up against the door to Annalise’s bedroom. He reaches for the doorknob, and her jaw drops as soon as she realizes what he’s doing. “Frank, we can’t – this is Annalise’s bedroo-”

“She’s out. DA’s office. We have time.”

They stumble inside without breaking their kiss, and she’s about to reach for the buttons of his waistcoat when-

“What the hell?” another voice demands.

Laurel shrieks, pulling away from Frank. A familiar head of short blonde hair pokes out from underneath the covers on Annalise’s bed.

Bonnie?

There’s someone else under the blanket, too, and when their head pops up it’s… _Asher_?

They both shoot to their feet with guilty looks on their faces, attempting to cover themselves with the sheets. Laurel blinks.

Next to her, Frank puts a hand up in front of his face to shield himself from the sight. “Jesus Christ. My eyes.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Bonnie spits, blushing a deep shade of red.

“Me?” Frank scoffs. “What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

“Ay yo, Frankie D!” Asher says, his eyes flicking to Laurel. “Tryna get it in too, am I right?”

Frank just stares at Bonnie. “Doucheface? Really?”

Bonnie flounders for words for a second, before gesturing to Laurel. “Like you have any room to talk!”

They stand like that in silence for a minute, looking each other up and down. Laurel can’t decide if she wants to laugh or throw up, and Frank seems to be in a similar dilemma.  

“So,” Asher pipes up suddenly. “You peeps, uh, up for a foursome?”

Bonnie gives him a look of disbelief. Laurel’s mouth drops open.

Frank just rolls his eyes and reaches for the door. “No thanks. I’ve already seen way too much shit today I can never unsee.”

Numbly, Laurel follows him outside and down the stairs. She isn’t even the slightest bit turned on now; seeing Bonnie and Asher like that is probably the most effective buzzkill in the world.

She looks over at Frank, and finds him with a sneer of disgust on his face. “I’d say we get down to it now that we’re alone, but I couldn’t get it up now even if I wanted to.”

“I know what you mean,” she shivers. “Did you… _know_?”

“No. And I wish I’d never found out. I’m gonna have nightmares for weeks.”

Laurel sighs, and he brings a hand to her waist, pushing the strands of wet hair gently out of her face and pulling her into him.

“I didn’t mean what I said. You gotta know that,” Frank reiterates. “I was being a-“

“-misogynistic ass?” she finishes for him, and they both chuckle.

“Yeah.”

She shakes her head. “We both said things we didn’t mean. Can we just forget it ever happened? Go back to how things were?”

He nods. “These past two weeks’ve been the longest of my life without you, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Laurel says softly, resting her forehead on Frank’s chin and inhaling a deep breath of him into her lungs. “Mine too.”

“No other girls, ever again. I don’t want anyone but you.”

Laurel can’t help but grin. “You really think you can do the whole monogamy thing?”

“For you?” Frank says, leaning in to kiss her again. “For you I could do anything, babe.”


	10. Stay

It’s 2:36 AM on a Friday, and Frank is still at the damn office.

The rest of the team, including Laurel, went home hours ago, and he’s stuck alone with Bonnie, running solely on caffeine and scrambling to finish up his work before the weekend. Granted, he’s used to surviving on little to no sleep, but it’s been one hell of a stressful week, and tonight he’d been really looking forward to going home with Laurel. To just being _with_ Laurel.

Well, that hadn’t happened. His night has only gone further down the shitter since then.

Just as he’s getting dangerously close to wallowing in his own misery, his phone vibrates under the stack of papers on Bonnie’s desk he’d thrown on top of it. Grateful for any distraction he can get, Frank grabs it and stares at the lockscreen. 

_1 New Message. From: Laurel_

- _Hey_

He furrows his brow, surprised she’s still awake.

- _Hey. Shouldn’t you be asleep?_

- _Shouldn’t you?_

- _I never sleep_

“Seriously Frank?” Bonnie snaps. “We have to get this done.”

He glances up from his phone at her, annoyed. “You’re one to talk. You just spent the last hour texting your boy toy.”

“I-” she stammers, visibly flustered. “I was not.”

“Please. You were blushing and giggling like a twelve year-old.”

Bonnie opens her mouth to say something, but closes it quickly and looks back to the files on her desk. “Fine. But hurry it up.”

Laurel replies hardly a minute later.

- _I was just thinking about you. I can’t sleep_

- _Take an ambien_

- _I was wondering if you could come over and be my ambien_

Frank raises his eyebrows at her forwardness.

- _Is this the text equivalent of a booty call, princess?_

- _Maybe_

He frowns. If he didn’t have a veritable mountain of crap left to do here, he’d say yes in an instant.

- _I can’t. I’m still at the office_

- _Please?_

The word makes him gulp. He can feel his resolve, which had already been paper-thin, wearing thinner still. Not knowing what to say, he doesn’t answer at first, and so, apparently hell-bent on getting what she wants tonight, Laurel tries again.

- _Please, Frank_

- _Laurel_

- _I need to see you_

Frank can imagine her pouting, her eyes wide and pleading, and he curses himself. How the hell is he supposed to resist? There’s no way he can say no to her now. He never seems to be able to.

- _I’ll be there in fifteen_

Frank gets to his feet, sets the files on his lap aside, and reaches for his suit jacket and briefcase without a word.

Bonnie gapes at him. “Frank! What the hell?”

“Sorry, Bon,” he replies with a shrug, heading for the door. “Duty calls.”

“Wha – _duty_? Frank! Get back here, Annalise will-”

He’s out the door before she can say another word.

He shouldn’t be leaving work, shirking his responsibilities; he knows that perfectly well. For just any other casual hook-up, he’d never even consider doing that to Annalise. But Laurel. _Laurel_. His whole body is thrumming like a live wire in anticipation of seeing her. In a matter of minutes, he’s in front of her building, in the door and up the stairs, until he reaches her apartment. Frank knocks, and after a moment the door opens to reveal Laurel, in sweatpants and a tank-top, with messy, ponytailed hair and sleepy eyes.

He takes in the sight of her head to toe. “I heard my services were required.”

She gives him a drowsy smile and steps aside to let him in. “You could say that.”

“I’ll probably have my ass handed to me by Annalise for leaving,” Frank remarks as she closes the door behind him. Her apartment is silent and pitch-black, the only light filtering in from the window over her couch.

“Frank…” She folds her arms. “You didn’t have to do that for me, not if it’s gonna get you into trouble-”

 _I’d do anything for you_ , he wants to say, but instead he just draws her close and interrupts her with a gentle kiss, sans tongue or teeth or roaming hands. Annalise and Bonnie and the rest of the damn world can wait; he’s with Laurel, now, and everyone else feels light years away.

“I was a little insulted you didn’t even bother with a booty call,” he teases after they break apart. “Kids these days. Sending booty text messages.”

Laurel scoffs. “Next time I’ll make sure to have a script on-hand.”

He grins. He’s always loved her quick wit; he loves talking to her, bantering, and yeah, maybe that’s not what he’s here for tonight, but he would be, if she’d let him. He already has a pretty good idea of how tonight will go down: they’ll go a few rounds, talk for a while, and then she’ll send him on his way. It’s like clockwork. He’s used to it by now.

But just because he’s used to it doesn’t mean that he has to like it. That he’s not allowed to want more.

Still, Frank lets her lead him into the bedroom, and when they cross the threshold, he feigns disappointment. “No bed of roses? Champagne? I have higher standards than this, babe.”

“I didn’t realize it would take so much effort to seduce you.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You saying I’m an easy lay?”

“Very.”

Frank can’t argue with that one. Instead, he just chuckles and captures her lips again, reaching over to help her pull off her tank-top. He shrugs off his suit jacket, and they fall onto the bed with him on top. She sets about unbuttoning his waistcoat, a task that always seems to take a hell of a long time. Three-piece suits are his thing, but they’re a pain in the ass to get off – especially now, when Laurel is horny and half-naked and he’d give just about anything to not have any clothes on at all.

When she finishes slipping her fingers through the buttons, she finds herself confronted with the button-down shirt underneath and _even more_ buttons, and she groans, pulling her hands away.

“You know, if you want to get laid, you could at least make yourself more accessible.”

He doesn’t waste time answering. He just makes off with his shirt and her bra and sweatpants in record time and lowers his lips to her neck, where he kisses and sucks in all the right places: the hollow of her throat, her collarbone, behind her ear.

She sighs contently, running her fingers through his slick hair. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m just so… tense.”

“Tense?” he stops, pulling away to meet her eyes. “I got just the thing for that.”

Frank urges her to flip onto her stomach, and though she seems confused, she complies. Gently, he brushes her hair to the side, and places kisses across the smooth expanse of her back, relishing in the taste of her salty-sweet skin. His beard scratches almost audibly against her, and Laurel gives a low hum of approval. Then, he places his hands on her shoulders and starts massaging them, working her muscles in all the right ways. He varies the amount of pressure he applies, moving his hands up and down and then in circles. Almost instantaneously, Frank feels her relax beneath him, and after a moment she actually moans in relief.

“That’s good,” Laurel breathes. “God, that feels so good. I’ve… I’ve been so stressed about work this week, and all these huge projects for my classes, and-”

“Don’t think about that now,” he urges, his voice smooth. “Let me help you unwind.”

He keeps it up, listening happily to the sighs and soft sounds she makes as his hands work. After a while, he moves his hands further south, past the curve of her ass, until they reach between her legs. He moves the crotch of her panties to the side and starts to stroke her folds, feeling her grow wetter beneath his touch. Laurel hisses when his fingers find her clit and brush against it.

Finally, he rises from the bed, does away with his pants and underwear, and then climbs back into the sheets, urging her onto her back. He’s hard, bobbing against her stomach as he kisses her, slides her panties off, and settles himself in between her spread legs

“How do you want me?” he purrs with mischief in his eyes. “On my knees? Tied up?”

“No,” she shakes her head, cupping his cheek and brushing a finger across his chin. “I just want you. Like this. Slowly.”

Frank doesn’t enter her straight away. Instead, he just brushes his cock against her, teasing her, taking his time, savoring the knowledge that she’s right there, right _there_ , wet and burning and yearning for him.

He looks her in the eyes as he angles himself just so to slip inside her, and finds she isn’t looking back. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her head tilted upward to leave her neck wide open for his lips, but it isn’t her neck he wants; he wants her eyes, blue and grey and full of so much strength that he thinks he’ll ever get tired of looking into them. They’re different in every light: blue in dim rooms, grey underneath the sun, a mixture of the two in other lights. He loves them.

“Look at me,” he tells her softly.

Slowly, she obeys, and when her eyes meet his, he stops breathing for a moment. There’s sleepy adoration in them, her lips forming a lazy little grin, and she reaches up, placing both her hands on his cheeks.

He watches Laurel closely as he enters her, easing himself inside inch by delicious inch, until he’s buried as far as he will go. Her eyelids flutter shut, and her lips part with a gasp, but she doesn’t let go of his face. She holds it there, and he doesn’t move for a moment, cherishing the look on her face, the feeling of being _inside_ her, as close to her as he can possibly get, where he’s sure by now he belongs.

“Look at me,” he says again, and places a kiss on her chin. “Keep looking at me.”

She nods frantically, her gaze locking onto his, and it’s only then that he begins to thrust slowly, as slowly as he can go, pulling out every so often to brush the head of his cock over her sensitive clit and send a jolt through her. And sure, they’ve had sex more times than Frank can even count, in all kinds of positions and places, but somehow this feels more intimate than any of those times. More _real_. No roughness for the sake of being rough. No games just for the sake of teasing her.

“H-how do I feel?” she asks softly, biting her lip.

“Perfect. Always,” he blurts out, because that’s the only word that comes to mind. “You’re perfect.”

Minutes pass. He isn’t sure how many, but it doesn’t matter. Time itself seems to slow when he’s inside Laurel, when she’s all he sees, whimpering and crying out underneath him. Frank still hasn’t looked away – not once – and neither has she. It’s like he’s hypnotized.

Frank can tell she’s close: her little cries are escalating in pitch, and her breathing has grown ragged, like it always does just before she comes. Still, he doesn’t pick up pace. He just keeps going, because he knows just as well as she does that tonight isn’t about amazing, mind-bending pleasure. This is slow, but it’s good. _So good_. Better, somehow, than all the times he’s had her before.

It’s only when Laurel comes that she closes her eyes and breaks their gaze, moaning his name and lifting up her head to bury it into his shoulder. Her hands fall away from his face. He can feel her walls around him, undulating and clenching in that delicious rhythm, and he finally groans, having been almost totally silent since the start. He continues working atop her, fucking her through it, and after the moment has passed for her, she places her palms flat on his cheeks and looks him in the eyes again.

“Come inside me,” she pants, her eyelids droopy with sleep. “I wanna feel you…”

That’s all it takes for Frank. He spills inside her with a moan, and his hips rock until the pent-up pressure inside him has released itself completely. He pulls out and collapses onto the sheets beside her afterward, and that’s how they remain for a minute or so, until he sits up and runs a hand through his beard.

“So, you think that did the tr-”

At once, Frank’s mouth falls shut. Laurel’s eyes are closed, her features serene. Her breasts, pale and almost glowing in the moonlight, rise and fall slowly, and when he listens closely, he can hear the rattle of sleep in her breath.

She’s out like a light. That had definitely done the trick.

He watches her for a while like that, and then, as quietly as he can manage, Frank gets to his feet, reaches for his pants, and takes a step toward the door.

The sudden tug of a hand on his wrist, however, stops him in his tracks. He looks back, and finds Laurel barely awake, reaching for him.

“Don’t go,” she whispers, her voice almost inaudible. “Stay.”

 _Stay_. This has never happened before. It’s always _You should go_ , or _I have an early class tomorrow_ , or _I’m sorry, Frank, but you know why it has to be like this_. And he knows why she thinks it has to be like this, to keep her relationships with him and Kan separate, packed away in neat little boxes that she can put away and forget about when she needs to.

But Kan isn’t here, now. It’s just him and Laurel, and she’s looking at him and asking him to _stay_.

He climbs back into bed without a word, drawing her into his chest and curling a strong arm around her. They don’t speak, but he holds her, really _holds_ her, and strokes her silky hair with one hand until she falls asleep in his arms.

He watches her for hours. He isn’t exactly sure how many, but he never gets bored of it – not once.

He’s not a stranger to being in love. He knows this is what it feels like.

 

\--

 

At some point in the night Frank finally falls asleep, and when he wakes up in the morning to find early morning sunlight spilling across the blankets, he reaches over almost instinctually to touch Laurel.

She isn’t there. His hand is met with only cold, empty sheets.

Furious, he sits up and clenches his jaw, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He should’ve known last night was too good to be true. Part of him even wonders if he’d dreamed it. He should’ve known it would end like this, and he would wake up, alone. He’s mad at Laurel, sure, but he’s fucking _furious_ at himself for thinking this time would be any different.

Fuck this. And fuck her. He’s so sick of having Laurel endlessly dangled in front of him, so close, but always just out of reach. He’s sick of it, of her games, and-

Out of nowhere, he hears the door to her apartment open. Keys jingle in the next room. There’re footsteps, too, growing louder and closer.

“Hey.”

Just like that, Laurel appears in the doorway, with a grocery bag hanging from one arm and two coffees in her hands. She isn’t wearing any makeup, and her hair is wind-blown in all directions. She’s still in her coat, her cheeks glowing red from the cold, and she looks like a vision to him right then. Like a beautiful dream.

“I ran out to get the stuff for French toast,” she tells him, “so you can show me how good yours really is.”

He’s so happy that it takes him a moment to find his voice. “You got it.”

Laurel turns on her heel to head back into the kitchen, and at first, he doesn’t move. He just watches her, mesmerized by the sway of her hips, the hop in her step. Finally, Frank snaps out of it and gets to his feet, sliding on his pants and following her into the next room with a grin.

As soon as he’s there, however, Laurel turns, shrugs off her coat, and gives him a pseudo-serious look. “I do have one condition, though.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, placing his hands on her hips to draw her closer. “What’s that?”

Her hands go for the buttons of her blouse. With her eyes locked on his, she undoes the top few, just enough for him to see that she isn’t wearing a bra underneath.

“Instead of just breakfast… we make it breakfast in bed.”


	11. Dessert

Frank’s eyes double in size like he’s just won the lottery. After a moment, however, the surprise fades, and they go narrow with desire instead, that familiar look Laurel has seen what must be hundreds of times before. It never fails to make her go weak, and she goes even weaker when he moves closer, presses his lips to her neck, and slips his fingers through the last few remaining buttons of her blouse. 

It parts down the middle, leaving her breasts bare for him, and he gives a low hum of approval at the sight. “That… is A-okay with me.”

With a gentle tug, the garment goes tumbling off her shoulders, rendering her completely topless. Next, his hands go for the buttons on her jeans, but she smacks him away and chides good-naturedly, “Cut it out. No dessert before breakfast.”

“C’mon,” he urges, his breath hot on her cheek. “Bend the rules. For me.”

That’s tempting, but Laurel shakes her head. “I’ll be in bed. Don’t make me wait, ‘kay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says with a wink. Her heart flutters.

With that, she turns and saunters back into the bedroom, so happy that she almost floats. Laurel stops just inside the door, however, and makes a show of leisurely stripping off her jeans and panties right where he can watch – and he _is_ watching. His gaze is hot, greedy, and so she bends over even though she doesn’t really need to, presenting him with the most scenic view of her ass she can manage.

At that, he gives an audible groan. “You’re killing me, Laurel.”

“Good,” she calls back with a laugh, and then crawls back into the bed.

The sheets are rumpled from the night before, and as she nestles herself beneath them, she catches a whiff of his cologne all over the cotton. It’s piney, woodsy, and musky; an olfactory trifecta, in her mind. She inhales more deeply, never able to get enough; she loves having it on her sheets, on herself. Even just smelling it in passing, in court or at the office… It’s so undeniably and completely _Frank_ that it drives her crazy, like an animal in heat.

She sighs happily, and looks out the door into the kitchenette, where Frank stands at the stove. The door is aligned almost perfectly to afford her a clear line of sight to him, shirtless with a mixing bowl in hand. She can see the sculpted muscles in his back moving as he works, the mouth-watering aromas of cinnamon and vanilla filling the apartment. 

Her eyes creep lower, to the curve of his ass in those immaculately tailored slacks. And soon, her mouth isn’t the only thing watering anymore.  

No longer content just to sit back and watch, Laurel hops out of bed, still fully nude, and strides back into the kitchen. She stops behind where Frank stands at the stove and curls her arms around his torso, standing on her tiptoes to peck him on the cheek.

“That smells amazing.”

“It’s the best you’ll ever have,” he promises, one hand on the frying pan. “You can hold me to that.”

She expects him to say more, but all Frank does is look back to the stove, and so she presses herself up against him more insistently. “Is it, uh, almost done?”

“Few more minutes,” he answers, not at all sounding like he’s picking up what she’s putting down.

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

“Perfection takes time, babe.”

Christ, how obvious does she have to be? His dirty mind always seems to be absent at the most inconvenient times.

She holds back her groan of frustration and decides to try a new approach, making her way over to the counter and opening the bottle of maple syrup she’d bought. She dips two fingers inside, then screws the cap back on and turns to him, giving a feigned gasp of distress.

“Shoot,” she curses. Frank looks over at her, and she holds out her hand with a pout. “I spilled some syrup on my hand. Could you…?”

Finally, a look of understanding crosses his face, and he chuckles, setting down the spatula in his hand and taking hold of her wrist. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”

Laurel shakes her head. “Uh uh.”

With mischief twinkling in his eyes, he dips his head and takes her sticky fingers into his mouth, licking them clean. He gives a deep hum around the digits, and it makes her tingle in all the right places, her nipples hardening into stiff peaks. Frank pulls away after a minute, and places a kiss in the center of her palm. Then, he moves up, kissing the inside of her wrist, and his beard scrapes against the tender skin there in a way that makes her toes curl. Able to read her body like a book, he moves further north, tilts her chin upward with one hand, and presses his lips down on hers.

“Y’know,” he mumbles against her mouth. “I remember you saying something about no dessert before-”

She interrupts him with another kiss. “ _Shut up_.”

Frank doesn’t need any more persuading. In one swift movement, he lifts her up, sets her down onto the countertop, and sinks to his knees. The feeling of the cold laminate on her bare ass makes her hiss at first, but she relaxes quickly when he starts running his hands up and down the lengths of her thighs, and rests her head back against the cupboards, sighing happily.

In the back of her mind, Laurel can’t help but think that Frank seems to spend an awful lot of time on his knees when he’s around her. Not that she’s complaining, of course.

“Here?” she breathes. “Really?”

“I’m hungry now,” he complains like a little kid, and settles her legs over his shoulders. “I can’t wait for breakfast.”

Laurel almost laughs, but her mouth falls shut only seconds later when he leans in and sucks her clit into his mouth, grazing his teeth across the sensitive little nub lightly, in just the right way to make her writhe. Her mouth drops open, and her hand flies behind her, grabbing onto one of the little handles on the cupboard behind her head. Her eyes fall shut, her body tensing, and she feels that delicious pressure behind to mount slowly between her legs, more and more, until-

The smell of burning food snaps her mind out of its foggy state. She sits up and looks over at the stove, only to find smoke rising up from the frying pan. Frank, however, has his face burrowed so far in between her legs that he’s practically using her thighs as earmuffs, and doesn’t stop, his tongue darting in and out and licking patterns onto her clit that make her twitch.

“Frank,” she tries to stifle the moan that carries his name on it, and fails. It only ends up sounding like any other moan of ecstasy, which just encourages him to pick up the pace.

She tries again, this time putting a noticeable bite in her tone. “Frank! Something’s – _oh_.”

Her own gasp cuts her off. Still, he doesn’t stop.

“The food is _burning_ , Frank!”

That does the trick. After a moment of confusion, he pulls away and shoots to his feet, darting over to the stove. “ _Shit_.”

On shaky legs, Laurel hops down off of the counter, just in time for the smoke detector to blare its high-pitched shriek of warning above them. They both jump, and Frank pulls the frying pan off the burner hastily, fanning the puffs of smoke away from his face with a cough. The pieces of toast in the pan are charred black, very obviously inedible. As if realizing the same thing, Frank glances over at her, with a guilty look on his face and his lips still shiny with her wetness. She can’t help but burst out laughing at the sight, and soon after he joins her, his shoulders quaking with mirth.

“So much for breakfast,” she chuckles, curling her arms around him.

He shrugs. “You taste better than French toast anyway.”

“Good to know,” Laurel laughs, then reaches into the plastic grocery bag on the counter next to them. “Well, at least I have a contingency plan. So you can finish what you started.”

She holds up a can of whipped cream and a little carton of fresh strawberries. Frank catches on in an instant, and smirks.

Needless to say, they give up on breakfast after that.

Instead, they end up back in bed, using the strawberries and whipped cream in ways they were definitely not originally intended for. But really, when she’s with Frank, and they’re both horny and naked, what other purpose could they possibly serve?

He feeds her strawberries, and she returns the favor, giggling when he nips gently at her fingers and sucks the juices off of them. After that, she coats Frank’s chest with whipped cream and then proceeds to lick him clean, until her lips and nose are covered and they’re both laughing.

“Stay still,” he orders after a little while, and then disappears briefly to procure a knife from the kitchen. Intrigued, she watches as Frank slices the stem off one of the berries and then cuts it into two halves, making his way back over to where she lays back against the pillows and setting each one of them onto her nipples.

She blinks, taken aback by the odd sensation, and then giggles. “Seriously, Frank?”

“Stay still,” Frank just tells her again, his eyes dancing with amusement. “I’ll make you a breakfast you won’t ever forget. Trust me.”

Then, he reaches for the can of whipped cream and sprays a line of it down her body, starting between her breasts, then down to her chest and belly button, before finally reaching the gentle, waxed mound between her legs. It’s there that he stops, and Laurel folds her hands behind her head, laughing again when he dips his head and takes one of the strawberries into his mouth.

It’s an unconventional kind of foreplay, but she has to give Frank credit for his creativity. She definitely won’t be forgetting this one.

“You know, I’ve never had a breakfast in bed where _I_ was the breakfast,” she teases.

Frank doesn’t answer. He just kisses at her neck, leaving sticky red blotches from his lips behind, and then lowers his mouth to her nipple, which he seals his lips around like he could devour every inch of her. That’s enough to draw a little moan from her, and she spreads her legs eagerly, allowing him to settle himself in between them.

She’s never before reached this stage in a relationship, where she’s totally comfortable letting a guy eat strawberries off her nipples. She’s not exactly sure what that says about her – or him.

She shakes that thought away, and before she knows it, he’s eaten the other strawberry and turned his attention to the puffy trail of whipped cream on her chest and stomach. Surprisingly, Frank doesn’t go to work right away; instead, he just takes in the sight of her and gives a deep grunt of satisfaction, his pupils dialated with lust. The intensity of his gaze makes Laurel squirm, her cheeks flushing even redder than the berries.

Frank meets her eyes, and wriggles his eyebrows. “Delicious.”

He starts between her breasts, licking the cream off languidly, savoring every bit of it. Laurel’s so turned on by the sight that she could almost die, right then and there, but she hides it and plays along as he drags his lips further and further down, towards his goal. It starts out seductive, but when he reaches her belly and his beard scratches against the ticklish skin there, Laurel can’t help but start to giggle helplessly again.

Frank looks up, annoyed. “Quit laughing. I’m trying to seduce you here.”

“Sorry,” she manages. His nose and beard are almost completely coated with the whipped cream, and the sight only makes her laugh harder. “That tickles.”

“Oh yeah?” he purrs, and then moves down until his lips are hovering only inches away from her sex. “Does this?”

Before she has the time to ask what he means, Frank has opened his mouth and gone to work between her legs again. The laughter shrivels up and dies on her tongue. Her head falls back against the pillow, and she closes her eyes, reaching down to run her fingers through his hair.

It’s only half an hour later, after he’s gone down on her and she’s gone down on him, and their supply of whipped cream and strawberries has been exhausted, and her sheets are stained with splotches of red, that they finally settle down to talk. She props herself up on her elbows and looks over at Frank, finding him just as messy as she is, with small patches of whipped cream still in his beard and on his chest. He almost seems to glow in the morning sunlight, his blue eyes catching it and gleaming.

Laurel realizes she’s staring the same time Frank does, and he gives her an amused look. “What?”

“Nothing,” she sighs contently. “I was just… thinking that we should do this more often.”

“You’re gonna need to stock up on strawberries and whipped cream, then.”

“Not _this_. I mean, this was really nice. But we should do breakfast more often. Together.”

She shouldn’t be doing this, Laurel knows that perfectly well. This was exactly what she said she _wouldn’t_ do: blur the lines between Frank and Kan, confuse things, make this about more than just sex. But as soon as the words leave her mouth, she sees a hopeful little spark flicker in Frank’s eyes, and she knows at once that she wants this, just as much as he does. She wants breakfast with him. Dinner with him. _All day_ with him.

She wants it, now. She’s wanted it all along.

Frank smiles – not his typical wry smirk, but a genuine smile. “I’d like that.”

“Maybe one day you’ll finally be able to show me why your French toast is such a big deal.” She nestles herself closer to Frank, drawing circles idly on his chest with one finger. “That is, if you can keep your hands off me long enough to not burn it.”

“Impossible,” he remarks, and leans in to kiss her.

Unsurprisingly, he tastes like strawberries, sickeningly sweet, and it makes Laurel grin against his mouth. She pulls away after a moment and licks her lips, suggesting breathlessly, “I need a shower. Wanna come?”

In the blink of an eye, Frank is back on his feet and trailing behind her into the bathroom. “That depends on what kind of coming you’re talking about.”

She snorts. “Very funny.”

Laurel steps inside the bathroom and reaches in to turn on the shower. The pleasant hissing sound of the water fills the room, and she reaches into the nearby linen closet, withdrawing a few fresh white towels for them. After a minute or so, however, she realizes that she hasn’t heard Frank’s footsteps enter behind her, and so she turns, finding him leaning against the doorway and watching her in silence.

There’s a look on his face that she’s never seen before, and it catches her off guard. There’s no cockiness in it, no lust. He doesn’t appear to be checking her out, even though she’s naked as the day she was born and he has every opportunity to do so. Instead his eyes are soft, disarming. She can feel his gaze on her skin almost as though he were touching her.

“You coming?” she furrows her brow and asks, peeling back the shower curtain.

The sound of her voice seems to draw Frank out of whatever thoughts he’d been occupied with, and he nods, stepping in after her eagerly. “Yeah. I’m coming.”


	12. Spank

“You know what I realized?”

“What?”

Laurel furrows her brow and looks up from the files in her lap as Frank sinks down onto the couch beside her, so close that his thigh brushes against hers. It’s mid-day at the office, and the rest of the team – including Bonnie – disappeared a few minutes ago to get lunch and prepare to hunker down for the rest of the day. Laurel had begged off, pretending to have a headache, and Frank had made up a similarly vague excuse for himself, ignoring Bonnie’s knowing frown and Asher’s thumbs-up.

Annalise is in her office, and they’re all but alone, though Frank keeps his voice down just as a precaution. Annalise probably has her suspicions about them, but he’s not dumb enough to ignore the fact that getting caught in flagrante delicto wouldn’t end well for either of them.

“You never get dressed up for me,” he remarks, teasingly.

Laurel gives Frank another questioning look, setting aside her papers and angling herself towards him. “Dressed up?”

“In lingerie,” he clarifies. “I’ll buy you some.”

“You don’t have to buy me lingerie, okay? I already have plenty. And after your last present, I think I’ll pass.”

“C’mon,” he urges, brushing her hair away from her neck and kissing the exposed skin there. “I’d kill to see you in some silk stockings.” His hand starts to creep underneath her short black skirt, caressing her inner thigh, just centimeters from the lace of her underwear. “With garters. A leather corset.”

That draws a laugh from Laurel. “I don’t own anything that kinky.”

“All the more reason,” he mutters in between kisses, “to let me get it for you.”

“And I should get all dressed up for you… why?”

He shrugs and reaches over, pulling her legs sideways into his lap. “To make me happy.”

She breaks into a full smile. “And why should I do that?”

“Because I make you happy,” Frank replies easily. “And because my jaw still hurts from eating you out for like an hour straight last night.”

“It was not an _hour_.”

“Maybe not,” he concedes. “But you still came three times in a row.”

Laurel blushes at the memory, and reaches out, fingering one of the buttons on his waistcoat absentmindedly. “Fair enough.”

Frank is about to lean in and kiss her when the creaking of a door startles them both out of the moment. Laurel’s eyes go as wide as saucers, and she does a pretty impressive ninja leap out of his lap into a nearby armchair, while he shoots to his feet and grabs a manila folder nearby. It’s empty, but he opens it anyway and pretends to be reading as Annalise steps out of her office, coat and purse in hand.

“I-I was thinking we argue the Matrix defense,” Laurel blurts out way too loudly. “It’s possible Mr. Miller simply believed he was living… in the, uh… Matrix.”

That draws Annalise’s attention. She stops for a second, gives them both odd looks, and then disappears down the hallway without a word.

Frank waits until he hears the front door shut behind her, and only then does he chuckle. “Smooth.”

“Smooth?” she scoffs, rising to stand. “You’re the one reading an empty folder.”

He tosses said folder aside and makes his way over to her, capturing her lips in a slow kiss and urging her backwards, until she’s pressed up against the wall.

“We have to stop doing this here,” Laurel pants, though she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than anything. He doesn’t buy it for a second.

“We have the house to ourselves. What else is there to do?”

She maneuvers herself out from between him and the wall. “Well, we are at work, so maybe… _work_?”

Frank curls an arm around her from behind, stopping her in her tracks. “I’m your boss. I’m giving you a break.”

Deliberately slowly, she turns. “How long of a break?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Really?” She feigns surprise. “You think that’ll be enough time?”

“Plenty,” he says, and before she can protest, he’s closing his lips over hers again, his tongue exploring every square inch of her mouth and drinking in the taste of her: crisp mint, from the Lifesaver she’d popped into her mouth earlier. He runs his hands up and down her sides, grabbing at her ass, tugging her closer, _closer_ , because he can never seem to get her close enough.

“About the lingerie,” she interrupts their kiss again. She pauses, then licks her lips. “I think… we can work something out.” 

 

\--

 

They go home together the next night, to his place.

Almost as soon as they step through the door, Laurel disappears into his bedroom, ordering him to wait outside for a few minutes. Frank isn’t sure why, but he obeys, plopping down onto his couch, rolling up his sleeves, and pulling a stack of files out of his briefcase. He’s been running kind of behind on work lately, and after Annalise had read him the riot act for leaving early the night he’d answered Laurel’s booty call, he’s been trying to get himself to focus more – which is a challenge in itself, as long as Laurel is in the room while he’s trying to pay attention to piles upon piles of paperwork and boring-ass precedents.

Yeah, he’s a guy, and yeah, he’s always sort of thought predominantly with his dick, but he’s afraid it might be getting slightly out of hand these days.

Laurel’s voice floats delicately out from the bedroom, stirring him from that thought. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” he answers, pulling at his beard with one hand. “Give me a sec.”

A minute passes. He loses himself in the mind-numbing lines of text again, until Laurel calls out, “Frank?”

“I’m coming,” he answers. “I just need a minute.”

That seems to irritate Laurel, and he hears her give an exasperated sigh. “Really? Because I think you’ll want to see this.”

Finally, he looks up. “What-”

Immediately, his mouth falls shut.

There in the doorway stands Laurel, one hand on her hip, the other pressed against the doorframe in a relaxed, seductive stance. She’s clad only in lingerie: a black bra with pink trimming and a little bow between her breasts, and a pair of barely-there black lace panties. Her waist curves in gently like a harp, her breasts pushed up and accentuated by the bra. Her hair lies in loose curls on her shoulders. Her lean legs look like they go on for miles.

And Frank is convinced that if there ever was an angel on earth, she is standing in front of him now.

He’s practically salivating at the sight of her. Frank blinks once, twice, wondering if he’s dreaming. The hunger in his eyes must be unmistakable, because she grins shyly and makes her way over to the couch, her hips swinging from side to side sensuously. Before he knows it, he has a lapful of squirming, eager, nearly-naked Laurel, and just like that, he’s hard as a rock.

His papers scatter all over the floor, forgotten.

“Well, well, well,” he murmurs, peppering gentle kisses on the tops of her breasts. “This is a nice surprise.”

“I didn’t have any garters, or leather corsets, but…” she drifts off, her voice little more than a whisper. “I thought this was almost as good.”

He smooth his hands lower, over the firmness of her ass. “It’s better. Perfect.”

She seems to take notice of the erection straining against his slacks just then, and grinds against it in just the right way to make him grunt. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

Frank just leans in and frees one of her breasts from its lace confines, taking the nipple into his mouth and sucking hard.

“You’ve been a naughty girl,” he hums lowly around it, the lilt of a chuckle in his voice. “I oughta take you over my knee and spank you.”

Laurel’s breath catches in her throat. “Would you?”

Holy shit. He’d been kidding, but Laurel looks serious – and seriously turned on. Her cheeks are flushed a deep shade of red, and she’s squirming in his lap, pressing her thighs together. Sure, he had made jokes about spanking her in the past, but never in a million years did he think she’d actually want him to _do_ it.

Frank raises his eyebrows. “You want me to?”

“Kinda,” she confesses, lowering her eyes.

For a second Frank just blinks, pleasantly surprised. Well, this night has taken a hell of a turn, and suddenly he finds himself unsure how to proceed. He could laugh it off, because he doesn’t get off on inflicting pain, especially not on Laurel. But she _wants_ him to. She wants this, from him, and it’s that knowledge that makes him adopt an ice-cold look in his eyes, his voice a deep, chill-inducing baritone.  

“Look me in the eyes when you’re talking to me.”

It’s an order, plain and simple. Frank waits a moment, trying to gauge Laurel’s reaction. Obediently, she meets his eyes from underneath heavy lids. Then, very slowly, he watches as a smile spreads across her lips, her eyes dancing – and there it is. She’s given him the go-ahead.  

With a wicked grin, he flips her over so that she’s laying across his lap, ass up. Laurel lands with a delighted ‘oof’ and a giggle. He doesn’t start right away, however; he just strokes one hand across her firm cheeks, left almost completely bare by her skimpy underwear.

“First, we’re gonna lay down some rules,” he tells her, lowly but firmly. “Just one, actually.”

“What?” Laurel breathes. Just by the airy sound of her voice, he can tell she’s already hopelessly aroused, and resists the urge to brush his fingers against her to check.

“You can’t come. Not unless I give you permission.”

Laurel glances back at him, her mouth ajar. “Frank, I can’t just-”

“And it’s not Frank,” he continues. “It’s Mr. Delfino, to you.”

He punctuates that with a slap – not too hard, because he’s not really sure how high her tolerance for pain is, and this is supposed to be about sexy-pain, not pain-pain. When his hand makes contact with her, Laurel inhales sharply and tenses.

“Understand?”

She nods frantically. “I-I understand, Mr. … Delfino.”

 _Christ._ And to think he’s never really been into the whole kinky roleplay thing.

He hits her again, harder this time. Her skin ripples, a red mark blooming where his hand had struck, and that draws another soft cry from her. She shifts again, brushing against his erection, which is pressing mercilessly into her stomach now.

Something occurs to Frank just then, and he stops, caressing her tender skin for a minute and feeling her relax. “Safeword?”

“I don’t want a – just.” Her own moan cuts her off. “H-harder.”

That earns her a rough smack. Frank raises an eyebrow. “I’m the one giving orders here. You try to order me around again, I won't let you come.”

That's the worst threat he could have made tonight, and they both know it. As such, Laurel doesn't protest. She just whimpers, her toes curling.

Frank is enjoying the hell out of his, but at the same time, he’s also really damn confused. The games he plays with Laurel never fail to make his head spin. One minute she’s meek, and the next she’s the dominant one. One minute she’s tying him up and sitting on his face, and the next she’s on his lap and begging him to spank her. He doesn’t get it, and he probably never will, and yet somehow that unpredictability just makes it a thousand times more thrilling.

He hits her again, and again; twice in quick succession. “Do I have to remind you who’s the boss?”

Laurel doesn’t answer. She just moans wantonly, and sticks her ass higher in the air, silently urging him on. It’s as red as a ripe tomato now, so much so that he’s sure it must be hurting her, but Laurel isn’t showing any desire to stop. Quite the opposite, actually. Growing bolder, he reaches down and presses two fingers against the paper-thin crotch of her panties. Just as he’d expected, she’s positively drenched, the lace sodden, and Frank groans before he can help himself.

“Well,” he echoes her words from before. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

Laurel starts squirming again when his fingers graze over her clit, and so he places his other arm across her shoulder blades to hold her in place. He continues rubbing her over her panties like that for a moment, and then strikes her once more, with the most force he’s used thus far.

“Stay still,” he commands, his voice cutting through the air sharply.

Laurel flinches and gives a breathy moan, but obliges, surrendering herself to him. He can sense she’s getting close, the pleasure and pain a potent cocktail for the both of them, and so, finally, he slips a hand inside her panties, finds her clit, and massages it, just in time to bring up his other hand for another slap.

Laurel’s cries grow in volume, and he makes a faint ‘tsking’ sound through his teeth. “Be quiet, now.”

“I-I,” she chokes out. “Please, Frank-”

Another smack. The sound cracks like thunder into the night, and she yelps, falling silent.

“Mr. Delfino,” Frank corrects her, trying to be firm and fight the smirk threatening to cross his lips.

He still hasn’t stopped rubbing her clit, and she’s starting to go boneless in his lap, her whole body quivering with need. “I… God, I need…”

“Use your words, Laurel,” he croons. “And ask me nicely.”

The use of her name, for some reason, makes her go absolutely weak. Her once-coherent sentences become nothing more than nonsensical ramblings. A fresh rush of wetness coats his fingers.

“I… _oh_ – you, I…p-please, this… need to-”

“Come? You need to come?”

Laurel just nods. All at once, he stops his ministrations on her clit. She mewls in frustration and thrusts her hips downward, seeking his fingers again, but he’s pulled them away, out of reach. Instead, Frank focuses his attention on rubbing circles on her ass, to relieve the burn his palms had left behind.

“Maybe I won’t let you come. Maybe you don’t deserve to. You’ve been very naughty, after all,” he tells her. “Maybe… I’ll leave you like this. I’m not the only man in your life. You could always call that boyfriend of yours to finish you off.”

“No,” the word bursts out of her mouth, panicked.

“You think of me when he's fucking you?” he asks. She offers no reply, and so he offers another slap to elicit one. “Do you?”

Laurel winces, but acquiesces. “A-all the time. Every time. E-even before we were… together.”

That piques his interest. “Oh?”

“That night, w-w-when we kissed for the first time… and I walked away and _God_. A-and I was so… wet that I went and found him a-and fucked him. And I imagined he was… you.”

Well, that's a revelation. And a smoking hot one at that.

Frank remembers that night vividly, almost like it was yesterday. He'd been in a similar state, and he'd just sped home and hopped in the shower and jerked off while thinking about her, perplexed by how just her lips had gotten him to such a state so quickly.

And she had run to Kan. And fucked Kan while pretending Kan was him. The thought alone is enough to drive him crazy. He's so hard that he can feel his cock leaking, but he'd sooner kill himself then come in his pants.

Instead, he returns his fingers to her hypersensitive clit, picking up the pace with quicker circles and strokes. “You've made me reconsider. Maybe I will make you come. Make you soak my hand, over and over, ‘til you're begging for mercy.”

“Do it,” Laurel pleads. “Do it do it do it. I need it!”

His fingers are almost impossibly wet. So are the insides of her thighs, and her panties, and the spot on his slacks where she’d ground down against him. He _could_ just leave her like this: so turned on that she’s almost sobbing, so close that even the tiniest movement of his fingers will push her over the edge. It would be cruel, but he could do it, and he has to admit, the idea is a little tempting.

But he can’t deny Laurel her orgasm when she’s this close, this desperate, this pliable and weak. He can never seem to deny her anything.

“You can come,” he coaxes, softening his voice and taking the edge out of it. “Come as hard as you can.”

Frank drives three fingers into her all the way up to his knuckles, so slick they slide inside effortlessly, and lands one last slap on her aching behind, and it’s that combination that finally sends her reeling. She doesn’t come hard enough to let go completely and soak his hand, but she does come really damn hard, and buries her face into the cold leather couch, twitching as she rides it out. He curls his fingers inside her and continues to toy with her clit, until the last aftershocks have ceased and she’s left struggling to suck air back into her lungs.

Without a word, Frank moves himself out from underneath her, wipes his fingers off on his slacks, and disappears into the next room. Laurel is still unable to speak and doesn’t ask where he’s going; she just lies there on her stomach, and only glances up at him when he returns, bottle of lotion in hand. Silently, Frank crouches beside her, squirts a little of the lotion into his hand, and then spreads it across her ass, which he can almost feel burning beneath his palms.

He stays like that for a while, rubbing the lotion in with gentle hands. It smells like soothing citrus, and Laurel heaves a sigh of relief after a few minutes, shifting her head sideways to watch him as he works. Satisfied that the stinging pain is gone for the most part, he sits back down on the couch next to Laurel and urges her into his lap again.

“All better?” he asks quietly.

He can see tears drying on Laurel’s cheeks, but the look of pure contentment on her face leads him to believe that they hadn’t been there because of the pain. She nods and releases a shaky breath, curling her arms around the back of his neck.

“Yeah.”

“It still hurt?”

“A little,” she admits. “But in a good way.”

He plants a kiss on her forehead, caressing the small of her back with one hand. “Good.”

“Wow,” she pants after a moment, as if just now realizing what they’ve done. “That was really hot.”

His cock twitches inside his slacks in agreement. “Tell me about it.”

“That’s always been a… fantasy of mine. I-I didn’t know you’d actually go along with it.”

“’Course I would. I exist solely for your pleasure. Speaking of which…” He drifts off, wriggling his eyebrows. “Any other fantasies of yours I should be aware of?”

Laurel flushes a shade darker. “There’s one other one, but…”

“But what?”

“I can’t _tell_ you.”

Frank almost laughs. After everything they’ve done together – especially considering what they’ve _just_ done – she doesn’t feel like she can discuss her sexual fantasies with him?

“C’mon. Who knows? Maybe I can help make it a reality.”

“Promise you won’t laugh.”

“I won’t laugh. I promise.”

Laurel describes it to him breathlessly. Him taking her on Annalise’s desk, in Annalise’s office, with the door unlocked and everyone outside, so anyone could walk in at any time and catch them. So anyone could _see_ , because that’s the one thing they can never do: be seen. The thought of the risk seems to invigorate her, and Frank has to admit, he likes the idea too.

Still, she looks so humiliated when she’s done speaking that he can’t help but chuckle. “A little exhibitionism, huh? I can work with that.”

Laurel frowns. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I’m not,” he sobers up quickly and tugs her closer. “I’ll make it happen.”

Her eyes light up. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’ll be everything you ever dreamed of and more. I’ll make sure of it.”

She smiles. “I never used to be an exhibitionist, you know. You turned me into one.”

“Did I?”

“Remember the porch?”

“Mmm,” he hums, taking a deep breath of her flowery perfume into his lungs. “What can I say? I like knowing that anyone could walk by and see. Hear how good I make you feel. I want everyone to know. _Everyone_.”

Before he can continue, Laurel seizes his lips with hers. Their kisses grow heated and heavy, and he’s reminded quickly of just how hard he still is for her, throbbing in his slacks almost desperately. With a grunt, he picks her up, urges her to wrap her legs around him, and carries her like that into the bedroom. He lets her down onto the bed gently, and then stands at the end of it to strip off his clothes.

Just as he reaches for the buttons on his waistcoat, however, he stops abruptly, taking in the sight of Laurel without a word. She’s licking her lips, her breasts rising and falling rapidly in anticipation of what is to come. She has closed her legs demurely. Her eyes are hazy with desire, appraising him in silence.

And again he finds himself struck by just how much he loves her. How much he fucking _adores_ her.

“Well?” Laurel urges with a laugh, after he hasn’t moved for a minute.

He abandons his quest to remove his clothes all at once. Instead, he makes his way back into bed and kisses her tenderly on the lips, slowing the pace significantly. He’s hard, but that can wait. This moment can’t.

“You’re beautiful, y’know,” Frank mutters against her neck. His voice drips with sincerity. “I don’t tell you that enough.”

Laurel gives him a doubtful look. “Frank…”

He almost tells her he loves her right then. The words are on the tip of his tongue, just about to slip out, but at the last moment he hesitates, like a coward.

“I mean it. You are,” is what he says instead, as he takes her lips with his once more, letting her wrap her thin arms around him and drag him to his doom.


	13. FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have arrived at the end! There’s only so much smut you can write before it all starts getting a bit repetitive, and while I don’t think it was at that point yet, I felt like this story was drawing to a natural close anyway. Never fear though, because I’ve been uncharacteristically prolific lately and should have something else out soon, so watch out for that! You've all been so lovely and I look forward to hearing from you soon :)

They’re alone at the office.

Bonnie and Annalise had left for the DA’s half an hour ago. The rest of the Keating Five disappeared out the door a few minutes prior to interview a handful of potential witnesses for their case. Laurel had been about to go with them when Frank, crafty as ever, had managed to convince Annalise that he could use a hand finding precedents for their case. That had been complete and utter bullshit, but it had worked, and she’d told him to tap whoever he needed for the job.

Predictably, Frank had taken _tap_ to mean another thing entirely. He’d nodded at Laurel, and just like, they were alone.

A fact that they are now taking full advantage of by fucking on the counter.

Her skirt is hiked up, her panties pushed to the side. Her blouse is unbuttoned, and he’d pulled one of her breasts out of her bra, leaving it exposed for his mouth. She’s lying down with her ankles locked at the small of his back as he moves, and his face is buried in her neck. She _had_ actually been trying to finish up her work, before he’d pulled her rather unceremoniously into the kitchen and laid her down, ignoring her protests of “we can’t do this, Frank, people _eat_ here!”

Now, though, she couldn’t give a shit about any of that. He’s practically ramming into her, setting a pace that has the both of them moaning, and she reaches back to grab onto the edge of the counter, her hips bucking to meet his every thrust. She’d loved the slow, loving sex they’d had that night a few weeks ago, of course, but as much as she loved that, she loves _this_ even more. Pulling his hair and letting him pull hers. Feeling him suck hickeys onto her neck. Being fucked, hard.

She’s close. She can tell that he is, too, because he’s swelling inside her and groaning more and more desperately into her neck with each passing second. And then, suddenly-

“Fuck, I love you, Laurel.” 

Laurel freezes.

“Wait, what?”

Is she hearing things? Sometimes she does kind of get caught up in her orgasm and lose her grasp on reality, but no, he’d really said that. That had been real.

 _I love you, Laurel_. She was about to come, but now… She can’t come now that he’s said _that._

Frank, apparently, has no such issue, because he comes inside her hardly a second later, his face nestled in the crook of her neck, almost as if he doesn’t know that he’s said anything. He kisses her neck as he rides it out, and after the bliss has faded, he pulls out, tucks himself away, and urges her up into a sitting position.

She must be pale, because Frank notices and moves in again. “Not enough? Here, let me help.”

He thinks she’s upset because she didn’t get off? Getting off is the last thing on her mind right now, because he doesn’t even look like he realizes what he’d said. _Does_ he? Laurel can’t be sure, but when he reaches down in between her legs, she swats his hand away, fixes her blouse and bra, and hops down off the counter.

“N-no. No, I’m fine.” He furrows his brow, and she swallows, finally meeting his eyes. “Did you mean that? That you… _love_ me?”

Frank nods without hesitation, unabashed. “Yeah.”

“You… that…” she sputters. “That-that doesn’t count.”

“What the hell does that mean?” he demands. “It doesn’t _count_?”

“It doesn’t count as an ‘I love you’ if you’re about to come, Frank!”

“What, you think I told you I love you just because I was about to come?”

“People say all kinds of stuff they don’t mean when they’re about to come,” she asserts. “I-it’s fine. Let’s just… forget you ever said it.”

“I don’t want to forget I ever said it,” he lowers his voice and moves closer to her, until he’s so close that she can feel each breath he takes. “I meant it.”

“No. No, I-”

She tries to take a step away, but he catches her wrists and pulls her into his chest. “I know you feel it too. Look me in the eyes and tell me again that this is just sex. Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel anything for me.”

Laurel wants to. She really, really does, but she realizes suddenly that she can’t. She’s looking into his eyes and he’s close – so _close_ – and she can’t lie to him, now. Not even if she wanted to.

“Fine!” she admits, wrenching her wrists away. “I do. I feel it too.”

“Then why are you shutting me out?” he asks, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“Because it scares me!” she finally exclaims, and he freezes. Laurel swallows. “It scares me, okay? Because I’ve never felt like this a-and I’d made up my mind that _this_ , whatever this is, wasn’t supposed to be anything more than sex and-”

The sound of the front door opening, followed by the thumping of footsteps in the foyer, cuts her off. She shakes her head. “We have to get back out there.”

“I tell you I love you and you’re walking out on me?”

She spins around to face him, lowering her voice. “I’m not walking out. I’m going to work on this case, which was what we should’ve been doing all along, instead of screwing on the counter.”

With that, she turns and makes her way out into the living room, plopping down onto the sofa and pulling a file into her lap in an attempt to look busy. The rest of the group files in through the front door shortly afterward, and after everyone is seated, Frank appears in the doorway. He picks up a folder, but doesn’t even try to pretend that he’s working; he just stares at her, his eyes searing into hers with what she can only assume is anger.

He loves her. _He loves her_. She’s having trouble processing the idea, and she feels so, so much for him right then – but she doesn’t know if she _loves_ him. She’s not sure she actually knows what love is. Love could be what she has with Kan: safety, familiarity, a warm bed she can always count on returning to at the end of a hard night.

Or it could be passion. Raw, animal attraction. A pull stronger than the force of gravity. It could be what she has with Frank. Maybe it _is_ what she has with Frank.

She looks away and buries herself in her work, trying to shake the thought that maybe – just maybe – it is.

 

\--

 

The next day, the fourteenth of March, is her birthday.

Since she and Frank are in a weird kind of limbo again after his poorly-timed declaration of love, she doesn’t see him that night. Instead, she ends up naked on Kan’s bed, watching him kiss his way down her stomach to the beat of ‘Birthday Sex’ playing over his little Bluetooth speaker. He’d bought her champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a beautiful pair of white gold hoop earrings, and she had felt so incredibly guilty she had been wishing she were spending the night with someone else that she’d pulled him into the bedroom almost immediately.

Now, he’s going down on her, which he doesn’t do all that often – or maybe she’s just been spoiled rotten in that department by Frank, who eats her out like she’s his milk and honey. She’s moaning and writhing, because Kan may be mediocre at most bedroom activities, but he’s above average at this.

Laurel doesn’t know exactly why it happens.

Maybe it’s because Kan has more stubble than he usually does, and it reminds her of another, bushier beard between her legs. Maybe it’s because Frank’s words are still echoing in her head nonstop: _I love you, I love you, I love you_. Maybe it’s because Frank is all she can think about during sex, ever.

But regardless of the reason, a feverish “Oh God!” tumbles from her lips, followed by:

“ _Frank_!” 

“Huh?”

Immediately, Kan stops. His head pops up at the end of the bed, and it’s only when their eyes meet that she realizes what she’s done.

_Oh no._

“Frank?” he repeats, bewildered. “Who the hell is Frank?”

Shit. There’s no talking her way out of this one. “N-no, Kan, I-”

“Isn’t Frank that asshole you work with you’re always complaining about? Why would you be thinking…” he drifts off. Understanding floods his eyes. “Oh.”

She sits up and shakes her head. “It’s not what you think-”

“So he’s done this to you too,” he says as he gets to his feet. She can see the puzzle pieces slowly coming together in his mind. “You’re… cheating on me?”

He looks like he’s about to cry. Laurel feels like the worst human being on the planet right then. The worst human being to have ever existed _ever._

“I… you – th-that-”

“I mean, there were times I’d come over and your sheets smelled like cologne, but I don’t know, I thought it was just your laundry detergent. But it wasn’t, was it? And that one time I came over to surprise you and we had that nice wine, and your bed was all messed up and you were sweaty… Were you with him?”

Laurel suddenly feels very naked. Well, she actually _is_ naked, but the way Kan is looking at her, with such disbelief and hurt in his eyes, makes her draw his scratchy cotton sheets up to her chest to cover herself. He’s still fully clothed, and it makes her feel even more exposed, like he can see right through her.

“Kan-”

“Just yes or no, Laurel. Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me I’m wrong.”

She can’t. After all that she’s done to him, she can’t lie to him again, not now, not like this. So she doesn’t; she just looks at him, her eyes glistening with tears, and he has his answer.

He clenches his jaw. “I think you should go.”

Kan isn’t yelling. He doesn’t even look that angry. He just looks sad, wounded, like a kicked puppy. For a moment she almost wishes he would yell at her, call her what she is: a slut, a cheater, a bitch. She deserves that – not this cold politeness.

‘Birthday Sex’ is still playing faintly in the background. _Birthday sex, birthday sex. It’s the best day of the year, girl_. It sounds like it’s mocking her.

Laurel opens her mouth, even though she doesn’t really know what she plans to say. “I… I don’t-”

“Just go, Laurel,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair and plopping down heavily into an armchair in the corner. “Just get out.”

Choking back tears – because she doesn’t deserve to be the one crying here, not really – she stands, gathers up her clothes, and slips them on in the living room. She doesn’t turn back to say anything to him; there’s nothing to say, now that he knows the truth. After grabbing her purse and coat, she steps outside and closes his apartment door behind her, finding herself alone in the dusty hallway. Kan had picked her up after work, which means she’s without her car and will be walking home – and of course, it’s fucking raining again.

But she doesn’t want to go home.

No. She knows where she wants to go.

 

\--

 

She shows up at Frank’s door around eleven, soaking wet and dripping all over the wooden hallway floor. He opens the door, and there he is before her, still in his waistcoat and slacks from work, like he’s only just gotten home. She must look terrible, with runny makeup and tears in her eyes, because a look of concern flickers across his face immediately.

“Laurel? What happened?”

“Kan ended it,” she chokes out with a sniffle. “Because of you.”

He furrows his brow, taking that information in for a moment before stepping aside to let her in the door. “You walked here?”

Silently, she nods. Frank scowls.

“Jesus, Laurel, it’s the middle of the night. You could’ve gotten jumped – or worse.”

“Yeah, well,” she mutters, shivering violently as she settles herself down onto his couch. “I probably would’ve deserved it.”

 After a moment, he takes a seat beside her, his eyes silently beckoning her to explain, and so she sucks in a deep breath and begins.

“I was at his place. I-in bed with him, and he was… going down on me. And for some reason all I could think about was you, and how I wished it was you, and so I…”

She drifts off, but Frank understands perfectly. “You called out my name in bed instead of his?”

Laurel nods. When she hears Frank chuckle, she scowls and smacks him hard on the shoulder. “Do not _laugh_ at me right now, Frank!”

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I’m sorry.”

“I… I really liked Kan. I loved being with him. And I just got so _mad_ , all the time, because if I’d never met you, if you’d never picked me for the team, I could’ve been happy with him.” She pauses, wiping at her cheeks. “You ruined it for me. It’s all your fault and I wanna hate you for it and I can’t.”

There’s a long silence as her words sink in, the only sound to be heard the violent pelting of the raindrops against his window. Then, Frank just stands, and holds out his hand to her.

“C’mon. Let’s get you in the shower.”

Even though her teeth are chattering, she manages a scoff. “Do I look like I need a shower?”

“You’re freezing. Now come on. I don’t need you keeling over on my couch from hypothermia.”

Reluctantly, Laurel trails after him as he leads her into his bathroom, her clothing dripping onto the beige linoleum floor. She unzips her boots and sets them aside, along with her coat, and he helps her peel off her sodden blouse and jeans. She doesn’t protest when his hands reach around to unclasp her bra, leaving her topless, her bare skin prickled with goosebumps.

She does, however, protest when she sees him start to unbutton his waistcoat and dress shirt. “Frank… I don’t want to-”

“We don’t have to.” He takes a step over to her and cups her cheek, his eyes filled to the brim with tenderness. “Just let me take care of you. For once.”

She hesitates for a moment, but ultimately nods, her entire body going slack with sudden exhaustion. Frank turns on the shower, the warm steam filling the bathroom and fogging up the mirror, then finishes undressing the two of them. Once he has, he slides open the glass shower door and leads her inside, under the hot spray of water. Almost immediately, she relaxes. The chill leaves her bones. She leans back against Frank, who curls his strong arms around her and holds her tightly as the water spills over her, wetting her hair all the way through.

Then, he sets about washing her. He uses a washcloth to wipe off the runny streaks of makeup underneath her eyes, then lathers his hands in shampoo and massages it into her scalp. Laurel stands still as he works, letting him move and lift her limbs however he needs, like a rag doll. For the most part Frank washes her silence, his touch tentative and soothing, only ever opening his mouth to tell her to rinse herself off.

Content, Laurel closes her eyes and leans back against him as he washes her, enjoying the press of his wet, hard body against hers. Somehow, it doesn’t feel sexual. It just feels… intimate.

Next, he focuses his attention on her body. He coats his hands in suds with a bar of soap and reaches around to her breasts, palming them gently, almost like he’s trying not to spook her. Sensing that, she gives a soft sound of satisfaction as a sign to continue, and so he does. She’s too upset by the night’s events to feel any kind of desire, but the pleasant feeling of him massaging and washing her breasts makes her body hum.

Then, his hands move down, across her belly and back and arms, molding her body like clay beneath them with all the care and attention of an artist. In each place he lathers her up with soap, scrubs, rinses her off, and then kisses her clean skin, before moving onto the next. He repeats this process until he’s kissed almost every single inch of her and her legs are going weak, her head lolling to one side.

After Frank finished washing her and then himself, he just holds her underneath the spray of water for a while, with his arms around her waist and his lips kissing gently at her neck. His hands and lips worship her in silence, and touch her like gold. She’s never felt so adored, so completely and unconditionally wanted.

So unconditionally _loved_.

They step out of the shower together, and after drying her with a towel, Frank drapes his blue bathrobe around her shoulders. It’s way too big for her, and she looks almost comical wearing it, but she accepts it gratefully, burying her nose into the sleeve and inhaling deeply. Suddenly drowsy, she sways on her feet, and once he has dried himself off and put on a shirt and sweatpants, he scoops her up in his arms bridal-style, like she weighs nothing at all.

He lays her down on his king-sized bed and settles himself down next to her, his hands reaching for her hair to finger-comb some of the damp tangles out of it. She rests her head on his chest, and that’s how they stay for half an hour, listening to the rumbling of the thunder outside without saying a word. Somehow, they don’t need to.

They’re able to understand each other perfectly like this, in the stillness.

“I’m a horrible person,” she finally croaks, nesting herself closer to Frank. She isn’t crying anymore, but her eyes are still red, and her nose runny.

“If it makes you feel any better, I am too.”

They share a laugh. Then, Laurel sighs. “I guess that means we’re perfect for each other.”

“I meant what I said,” Frank tells her, taking her hand and playing with her fingers idly. “Yeah, I could’ve said it at a better time. But I love you.”

She gulps. “I don’t know if-”

“You don’t have to say it back,” he interrupts her gently. “Just know that I do.”

She does. She can see it in his eyes, which look at her almost like he’s looking at the sun. And she thinks that one day – maybe not tomorrow, or next week – but _one day_ , she could love him, too.

She thinks that part of her already does.

Laurel laughs softly, and his eyes twinkle with amusement. “What?”

“Nothing. You…” she snickers. “I can’t believe you told me you loved me for the first time while we were having sex on a counter.”

“I’m a romantic at heart.”

She sobers up and pulls back to meet his eyes. “So… what does this make us now? Am I your girlfriend?”

“You tell me.”

There’s a pause. Then: “Do you want me to be?”

“Is that even a question?” She lowers her eyes, and he reaches out, urging her chin back up. “I want you. All of you. I always have.”

Laurel purses her lips in contemplation. “I just don’t want to put a label on us yet.”

“Then we don’t have to,” he murmurs, and plants a kiss on her forehead. “You don’t have to be my girlfriend, princess. You can just be my girl.”

 _My girl. Frank’s girl_. Before, she’d hated that. But now…

“Yeah.” Laurel grins from ear to ear, and settles herself back down at his side so easily that she wonders for a moment how she ever thought she could belong anywhere else. “I like the sound of that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos/comments are much appreciated!  
> Find me on [tumblr](http://www.laurelcasfillo.tumblr.com)!


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